The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Senate set to approve state budget
Gov. Lamont promises to sign $51B package that has bipartisan support
HARTFORD — A $51 billion state budget — with tax cuts and a boost for education funding — was headed for bipartisan approval Tuesday as the state Senate took up the legislation ahead of the adjournment deadline of midnight Wednesday.
The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the spending plan early Tuesday with an overwhelming 13912 vote after a three-hour debate where Democrats agreed to remove sections of the budget that Republicans opposed. A small band of conservative Republicans opposed the budget, which includes the first cut in the state income tax since it was enacted more than three decades ago.
State Sen. Cathy Osten, DSprague, co-chairwoman of the budget-writing Appropriations Committee, called the budget — $25.1 billion in the fiscal year that starts July 1 and $25.9 billion in the second year — a humane package. The first year of the budget would be $14.4 million under the statutory spending cap, while the second year would be $2.2 million under that limit.
“Always our number one concern is to make sure that we have humanity in our everyday discussion on the budget,” Osten said, kicking off the Senate debate at about 11:40 a.m.
“This budget grows upon the historic investments made in our communities from the underlying 22-23 budget, which gave our non-profits a 7-percent raise, spent tens of millions of dollars on our childcare workforce and brought town aid to an unprecedented high. Our budget for 24-25 builds upon this base by annualizing the raise for non-profits and giving them an additional $206 million over the biennium; investing an additional $150 million over the scheduled (Education Cost Sharing) increases in our elementary education system; and prioritizing and strengthening our health care system, all while staying within the fiscal guardrails we reestablished at the beginning of this year.”
Sen. John Fonfara, D-Hartford, the longtime co-chairman of the tax-writing Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, called the revenue side of the budget a “pro-growth” document that culminates five years of stabilizing state finances in
“We are in a very good spot, I would say at this point in the process.”
Eric Berthel
preparation for supporting more economic growth.
“There are no less than 17 individual actions that reduce the costs to families and businesses by way of tax rate reductions, tax credits, fee reductions and other options,” he said. “There is more than one way to generate revenue to invest in early childhood education and child care, in higher education to support the dynamic academic leadership that we have at our flagship university and our state university system that is preparing Connecticut’s workforce of tomorrow; workers who care for our loved ones in nursing homes; and para-educators who support our children and teachers in the classroom.”
Compared to the current budget, which runs through June 30, spending in the first year would be $918 million more. Next February the General Assembly meets in the short, February to May budgetadjustment session.
State Sen. Eric Berthel of Watertown, a top Republican on the Appropriations
Committee, said that while the more than $600 million in tax reductions is a positive move, the state could have made it much higher. Earlier in the session, Senate Republicans offered an alternative budget with $1.5 billion in tax cuts.
“We are in a very good
spot, I would say at this point in the process,” said Berthel, who is in his fifth term in the legislature and pointed to the imminent adjournment of the part-time House and Senate. “The House has already taken up this measure, and here we are with a day and a half left, and
assuredly we will vote on this budget at some point of time through the course of this day. We have met our obligation to provide and presumably pass a balanced budget. We have had sessions that I have personally endured where we were back in this beautiful
chamber in November, where we still had not passed a budget.”
In particular, the long summer of 2017, under then Gov. Dannel Malloy, led to a bipartisan deal that included new spending and bonding caps that are regularly cited by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle as a turning point in state finances. Those “guard rails” were reinforced near the start of the current session, which began on Jan. 4.
Sen. Henry Martin of Bristol, a top Republican on the Finance Committee, recalled that when he was elected in 2014, the state was in a state of perpetual finance crisis. “We were always in deficit,” he said, adding something that he read that stuck with him. “The states and the communities that have less spending and lower taxes are the communities and states that have the greatest economic growth. I have always kept that in my mind. How do we turn our state economy around? I am happy to say I believe that we have turned the corner here in the state of Connecticut, from the last decade or two decades of reoccurring deficit after deficit.”
While the Senate took up the budget, the House of Representatives, which finished the budget at 1:45 a.m., considered dozens of other bills awaiting action before the deadline.
House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, RNorth Branford, said the impressive support of GOP lawmakers was based on the adoption of their ideas. “A lot of the stuff we proposed in our budget got incorporated into the final product,” he said.