GOP: State budget needs more long-term anti-crime funding

Amid Republican criticism that proposed adjustments to the next budget would put Connecticut on track for a hefty billiondollar deficit, majority Democrats on the legislative Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved a $24.1 billion spending plan to start July 1.

After a three-hour review and discussion, the vote was mostly along party lines, with Rep. Kathleen McCarty, R-Waterford, joining the majority.

The debate also focused on Democratic plans relying on short-term federal COVID-relief money to provide more funding for a variety of programs, including law enforcement and other anti-crime initiatives.

“This should in no way be an acceptable budget to the residents of Connecticut,” said Sen. Craig Miner, R-Litchfield, a top Republican on the committee, stressing the rise in violent crime needs longer range support, not the one-time spending of American Rescue Plan Act.

“I think it’s a very serious problem,” Miner said, referring to his corner of northwest Connecticut. “We know what’s going on and we think we should be appropriating money there. To do it out of a one-time fund like ARPA seems misguided at best. We need increased enforcement. People need to be managing crime.”

Miner pointed out a recent shooting in New Haven that left bullet holes in the home of Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, a co-chairman of the law-writing Judiciary Committee who also serves on the Appropriations Committee.

In response, Winfield said he hopes for a broader discussion in the legislature on the type of long- and short-term investments needed to heal communities and offer lifestyle alternatives to youngsters.

“The police are on it,” he said of the incident this week, in which a person was shot on the street in front of his home, sending his family to the floor inside the home to seek cover. “They are investigating it,” Winfield said, his voice cracking with emotion.

“That doesn’t stop it from happening,” Winfield said. “What stops that from happening is that those young people who were involved in that ... don’t get involved in those types of crimes. I recognize that it is important that law enforcement has the tools it needs. But it is just as important that we think about keeping those young people from being on those streets doing the things that they’re doing. But this legislature is not really good at doing that.”

Miner agreed with Winfield that the public-safety budget is just one part of the state’s potential for “getting to the root cause of gun trafficking, the root cause of the sale of drugs” and other issues. “It should be represented in the budget on an ongoing basis, not a onetime basis.”

The committee slightly reduced Gov. Ned Lamont’s proposed spending plan, adding small amounts to the state’s tourism account and slashing funding for the Consumer Counsel and Public Utilities Control Fund. While Lamont had proposed using about $797 million in ARPA funding next year, the committee leaders opted for $676 million, leaving $375 million in reserve for the fiscal year that starts July 1, 2023.

“They do hold dollar amounts for nearly every state agency,” state Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, co-chairwoman of the committee, said of the proposed spreading of ARPA support. “As has been discussed, some will have ongoing consequences. Many will not. For me, this is a COVID-relief budget, a budget that meets the immediate challenges we face today by investing in an equitable future.”

Miner, who is not seeking reelection after serving in the legislature since 2001, said that while Lamont is claiming credit for the state’s fiscal improvements, it was the bipartisan work in 2017 that set parameters for growth.

“No one could have anticipated COVID when we put that budget together,” Miner said, warning that the budget proposal includes $23 million in raises for nonunionized state employees and $74 million to provide wage enhancements for child care.

“I can’t help but say what kind of a long-term commitment should anyone take away from the way those two things are being funded?” Miner said. “In the years to come, it’s going to be difficult for this committee to fund all the good things in this budget.”

State Rep. Toni Walker, D-New Haven, co-chairwoman of the committee, stressed that every year is different and the General Assembly should invest more this year, while it can.

“It’s important for us to understand that helping people now with the federal dollars is the best thing that we can do until we can figure out how to make things more permanent and more clear,” Walker said.

While some estimates project a $1.4 billion deficit in the fiscal year that starts July 1, 2023, Walker said robust sales and income tax collections, which raised the surplus in the current budget year to $1.7 billion with less than three months to go, are expected to continue.

“If we don’t have child care, we don’t have the ability of people to do jobs,” Walker said. “There’s no support for them. I would wish that people would understand that funding is something that changes every year, because we’re not sure what we’re going to have in the budget, and in revenue next year.”

The panel’s vote, combined with the tax plans approved Wednesday by the Finance, Revenue & Bonding Committee, will become the basis of closed-door negotiations between Democratic leaders and Lamont’s budget staff as the General Assembly heads toward its May 4 adjournment deadline. Democrats have a 97-54 majority in the House and a 23-13 edge in the Senate, although Sen. Mary Daugherty Abrams, D-Meriden, has been ill most of the year.

Overall, the committee’s budget is about $14.4 million less than Lamont’s proposal.

It includes $100 million to reimburse municipalities for reducing local automobile property tax rates to a maximum of 32.46 mils statewide. On Wednesday, the legislative Finance Committee, in a competing plan, approved a bill that would give taxpayers in towns with mill rates of 29 or greater $5,000 exemptions on the value of personal motor vehicles at a cost to the state of about $250 million.

The appropriations budget also has $72 million for state nonprofit providers; $20 million for infant and toddler day care slots; $15 million for new construction and renovations to child care facilities; $14 million for domestic violence prevention programs, including 18 new positions in the state network of shelters; $12 million to the Tobacco Trust Fund for smoking cessation programs; $10 million for commercial business vouchers to purchase medium-and heavyduty electric vehicles; $7 million to initiate or enhance student mental health services at 36 school-based health centers.

Among items in the budget that differ from Lamont’s proposal are $4.5 million more for the state Workforce Reinvestment Act; $3 million in additional support for short-term residential psychiatric treatment for youths; $2.3 million for the Project Longevity, aimed at steering urban youths away from crime; $2.2 million for pay raises for state judges; $1.4 million extra for the state’s Manufacturing Pipeline Initiative; $1 million to help repopulate the Atlantic salmon and the American eel; $400,000 for the Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

And after a debate in recent months over whether the current biennial budget included money for the removal of the controversial statue of colonial soldier John Mason, Osten allocated $100,000 to remove the 3,000-pound marble replica from the third floor exterior of the State Capitol building to likely be moved to the Old State House in downtown Hartford.