Lamont directs nonprofits to private donors

Nonprofit social service agencies have been pleading with Gov. Ned Lamont for months to share $100 million of Connecticut’s recordsetting budget reserve with them.

Speaking before hundreds of nonprofit leaders Wednesday at the Connecticut Convention Center, Lamont once again dashed their hopes.

Although he gave the industry lots of praise and promised to urge rich investors to donate, he continued to insist Connecticut can’t spare its reserves.

“I spent the last two weeks talking with a lot of pretty wellheeled investors,” Lamont told nearly 550 nonprofit agency leaders at the CT Community Nonprofit Alliance’s annual convention.

“I also mentioned to those investortypes that … I need them to step up more. And I need them to contribute more to what we’re trying to do in the notforprofit community.”

The alliance asked Lamont and the legislature to step up last May and transfer $100 million from Connecticut’s rainy day fund to a nonprofit network that is, effectively, the largest unofficial state agency. It continues to run an advertising campaign this fall appealing for these funds, which never materialized.

GianCarl Casa, president and CEO of the alliance, said nonprofits will continue to press lawmakers to share a relatively small portion of the rainy day fund.

“We’re already facing rainy day after rainy day at this point,” he said.