The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Dems, GOP hail budget deal
Senate passes final bill with an hour to spare before deadline
HARTFORD — The second bipartisan budget deal in seven months was passed unanimously by the Senate with just over an hour to spare before the Legislature adjourns.
Lawmakers gushed over the election-year budget adjustment, which takes effect July 1.
It contains no new tax increases, they said, but avoids cuts to municipal aid, transportation and other programs that were planned in the two-year budget passed in October.
“While other states in our nation and the national government itself seems to be locked in gridlock and so many people at so many levels have forgotten about why they were elected, to make government work, to serve the people and would rather to see something fail than to see something pass by a compromise vote, we fortunately are different from that in Connecticut and better than that in Connecticut,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven.
“It is once again a monumental step for the state ... that a bipartisan deal ... has been reached.” Senate GOP leader Len Fasano
The House must now vote on the plan before midnight Wednesday, or call a special session to continue debates.
Top Democratic and Republican leaders declared the compromise outside the House Wednesday afternoon in a show of unity following days of closed-door negotiating.
“I think it is once again a monumental step for the state of Connecticut that a bipartisan deal for the second time in a row has been reached,” said Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven.
The $20 billion budget adjustment blocks increases in bus and rail fares and cutbacks in service and fully funds the Medicare Savings Program, which provides payment assistance for health care costs for many low-income residents. It is expected to be signed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, leaders said.
“I think those categories were of great concern to all members on a bipartisan basis, and they were addressed in this adjustment bill,” said Looney.
The plan also covers funds to avoid cuts to the HUSKY A health insurance for poor and disabled residents. It leaves $1.1 billion in the state’s Rainy Day Fund for future emergency state spending. But it transfers $721 million out of the fund to reimburse hospitals for paying a state provider tax and pay off the current $382 million deficit.
Neither party was able to work in a reduction of the car tax mill rate that they supported.
Republicans lost some controversial proposals aimed at reducing union benefits, including reduced collective bargaining options for state employees and eliminating overtime pay for calculating retirements. A GOP proposal to make an initial lump-sum payment toward state pension obligations also did not make it into the final deal.
If Republicans were going to agree to a “plan B,” said House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, RDerby, they had to be sure “that vision and those policies that we believe actually move the state forward — not just fix it for the time being — are in there. We feel that most of those have been included.”
“It took compromise on all sides,” said House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin.
Negotiations were pushed along by a mutual desire to avoid a special session — in which legislators would come back to the Capitol this summer to work on the budget, cutting into campaign time.
With more revenue coming into state coffers this spring, they were eager to reverse some of the more draconian cuts they approved to municipal and education aid, the Medicare Savings Program and transportation, legislators said.
In the past two weeks, each party has pitched several 2019 budget plans that generally inched closer together with each iteration. As of Wednesday morning, the two spending proposals differed by less than $20 million in a budget of $20 billion.