Democratic panel OKs $43B budget
GOP rejects plan, say it would raise taxes higher than Lamont has asked
HARTFORD — Along strict party lines, the General Assembly’s budget-writing panel on Tuesday approved a two-year,
$43.26 billion budget, kicking off five weeks of negotiations with Gov. Ned Lamont over issues including whether towns will pay some — or any — teacher pension costs.
The Appropriations Committee’s vote will be combined with a Finance Committee tax package on Wednesday or Thursday to yield the Democrat-dominated Legislature’s vision of state spending and taxes.
Republicans rejected the 241page budget document, charging that it would raise taxes even higher than the $1 billion already proposed by Lamont.
The spending package leaves several big issues up in the air. Paid family and medical leave, the hike in the $10.10 minimum wage to $15 and shifting part of the burden for funding the troubled teachers’ retirement plan will all be subject to future negotiations with Lamont. A million dollars was approved to study the public option for health insurance.
“Over the course of the next few weeks, we have a lot of work to do as negotiations continue,” Lamont said in a statement. “I look forward to having more important conversations with my colleagues in the General Assembly in order to craft a final and honest budget which helps Connecticut grow good paying jobs, demonstrates that state government can live within its means and prepares our kids from Danbury to Danielson for a brighter economic future.”
The first year of the budget would be about $395 million or
about 1.9 percent more than the current level of spending. The second year would be a
3.6 percent spending increase, about $768 million. In a related matter, revenue figures for the current fiscal year, released at 5 p.m. Tuesday, indicate the state will end the year June 30 with a
$582 million surplus, up more than $14 million from earlier in the month.
The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities said it supports the budget’s increased aid for public education, but finds the issue of forcing towns and cities to pay a portion of teacher retirement contributions ominous.
“The Teachers’ Retirement System mandate would be the largest unfunded state mandate in recent memory,” the CCM said in a statement.
“This budget does seem to lead with increased taxes,” said Rep. Gail Lavielle, RWilton, ranking member of the committee, stressing that in recent years, Republicans contributed more to a final product. “We don’t know what they are yet, but that’s the question. We know they’re there. We just don’t know which ones. I will not be voting for the budget today.”
While it also appeared to turn down the governor’s proposal to have towns and cities start to pay a portion of their teacher retirement contributions, during a meeting with reporters prior to the committee meeting, Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague and Rep. Toni Walker, DNew Haven, the committee co-chairwomen, said the issue would be subject to further negotiations with Lamont.
“I believe it was a miscommunication,” said Osten. “I don’t think we clarified enough with OFA,” said Walker, referring to the Legislature’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis. “The two of us will take responsibility for it,” Osten said.
“Actually, we have said out loud that we believe that there may have to be a need for municipalities to pay into teachers’ pension,” Osten said. “We planned on having that in the budget documents that municipalities would have to contribute toward teacher pensions. There was an error in the documents that we noticed this morning after they were already printed.”
There are references in the Democrats’ budget that anticipate family and medical leave and the $15 minimum wage, including higher pay for nonprofit social service workers, but those bills have not been finalized.
In February, Lamont proposed requiring most communities to accept a threeyear phase-in for assuming at least 25 percent of employer costs of teacher pensions. After those three years, the towns and cities would be responsible for paying $71.5 million a year into the fund. Last year, public school teachers started paying 7 percent of their salaries into the fund, up from 6 percent.
“Appropriations has had some challenges,” Walker said prior to the committee vote. “This budget does not lead with taxes, because we are the Appropriations Committee. We lead with the policies and the ideas that are important that we have been asked by our constituents to work on.”
But Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, lambasted the plan as more stress on state taxpayers with higher spending at a time that government cannot afford it.
“The Democrats’ proposal is a massive step backward for Connecticut families,” Fasano said in an early afternoon statement. “At a time when our state needs to get serious about change, this proposal goes back to the old days of gluttonous spending, political handouts and made up savings that are impossible to achieve.”
Fasano anticipates a statewide tax increase of $1 billion if the package were approved.
Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, said GOP lawmakers are “posturing” until or unless they issue their own line-by-line document.
“The only way to take into consideration Republican budget priorities is to see a fully vetted document that indicates where they seek to raise revenue or cut spending,” Looney said in an afternoon statement. “It is impossible to budget in a piecemeal fashion.”
The budget accepts Lamont’s and state Treasurer Shawn Wooden’s attempt to reamortize the troubled Teachers’ Retirement System, which faces a multibillion-dollar payment within just a few years. The legislation would stretch the payments out 30 years, adding $17 billion in long-term debt..
Priority school districts would get $30.8 million in each of the two years. Debt service would total $1.9 billion in the first year and nearly $2 billion the second year.
The state must have a balanced budget. The new budget, which is the central reason for the legislative session, will be negotiated behind closed doors between lawmakers and Lamont, at a time when at least 900 bills remain active in the approval process. The statutory deadline for the General Assembly is midnight June 5.