‘Fiscal notes’ doom seven legislative proposals
HARTFORD — With just three weeks left in the legislative session and more than 600 bills remaining in the General Assembly’s pipeline, the culling process has begun in earnest.
The budget-writing Appropriations Committee on Monday killed seven bills without even mentioning them during a brief meeting in which six pieces of legislation survived and the rest died of inaction, if not actual neglect, because they would have cost more money in the two-year, $51 billion budget, adopted in last year’s session.
So, a bill that would have created a separate elder justice unit in the Department of Criminal Justice at a cost of about $800,000, expired in the committee without a vote.
Another casualty: a bill to require newborn screening for Duchenne muscular dystrophy at a cost of $376,000, starting in 2027.
A bill that would require the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to perform pollen counts in accordance with federal standards at a first-year cost of as much as $1.3 million, suffered a similar fate.
A half-million-dollar program to create an advanced
“Sometimes you can’t say yes to everything. It’s probably been frustrating for some people who have been used to putting in the bill, regardless of the fiscal note, it gets passed out, and it gets put into the sauce. But in year two of the biennium budget, they’re not supposed to make significant, major changes.”
Speaker of the House Matt Ritter, D-Hartford
life support unit on the University of Connecticut campus in Storrs, also died without a mention in the committee.
The seven dead bills, including the proposed expansion of home care for the elderly; hazard pensions for certain judicial employees; and the expansion of some veterans benefits, will likely return next year during the longer, budget-creating session of the General Assembly, which runs from early January into early June.
The presence of added costs — reflected in “fiscal notes” prepared by the nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis — doomed the seven for this legislative session, which ends at midnight on May 8, however.
But this year’s 13-week budget adjustment session, in which the Appropriations Committee has already agreed to keep in place the $26 billion state budget that starts July 1, is holding the line on new spending, even as tax receipts pour into the state Department of Revenue Services, which will soon give Democratic majority leaders a better picture of Connecticut’s fiscal health.
State Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, co-chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday that the financial implications took precedence over what might be good ideas. All the bills had been referrals from other committees where the ideas were the subjects of public hearings and member votes.
“It was just reflective of the fiscal notes, not the policy, if you can’t afford to do it,” Osten said, adding that even bills that would have taken effect after the next fiscal year ends on June 30, 2025, were on the chopping block. “We’ve been given the direction of ‘don’t extend out the time frame because you’re just not getting funding.’ Even if we like them, we’re not able to do them.”
During Monday afternoon’s meeting, the 53member, Democraticdominated Appropriations Committee raced through the first six bills with little discussion before individual roll call votes, including a bill to expand the use of work zone speed cameras.
Osten said Republicans were aware of the fiscal implications of the nowdead legislation. “We always include both sides when we get ready to do these bills,” Osten said.
Speaker of the House Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said Wednesday morning that the committee met its goal of not amending the budget that takes effect on July 1, as legislative leaders prepare to find at least $300 million in extra funding in negotiations with the governor.
“Sometimes you can’t say yes to everything,” Ritter told reporters before the day’s House session. “It’s probably been frustrating for some people who have been used to putting in the bill, regardless of the fiscal note, it gets passed out, and it gets put into the sauce. But in year two of the biennium budget, they’re not supposed to make significant, major changes. It was different for a few years because of the pandemic and because, frankly, there was a lot of money lying around. But this is getting back to more-normal times. We need to reset expectations a little bit. It’s really hard to do wholesale stuff in the second year of the budget.”