Lamont, lawmakers heading for showdown over spending cap

Connecticut governors have struggled for years to live within the budgetary spending cap. But Gov. Ned Lamont is challenging legislators to stay farther below it than they have been able to in more than a decade.

The administration says controlling spending would ensure the big income tax cuts that Lamont wants would last for many years and would not have to be repealed if the national economy slips.

But legislators and others say Connecticut has too many pressing education, health care and social service needs to make the cap their sole focus.

“While there is room under the spending cap [to spend more], the governor has been clear we need to provide tax relief to families, and that cannot be done if we spend every dollar available under the spending cap,” Chris Collibee, Lamont’s budget spokesman, said.

To say that Lamont left “room” under the cap is putting it mildly.

The biennial plan he presented to legislators on Feb. 8 would spend $25 billion in the fiscal year that starts July 1 and fall to $57.4 million under the cap that seeks to keep growth in state appropriations in line with household income and inflation.

That’s in line with the $78 million in cap room governors have averaged over the past decade in their initial, biennial proposals.

But Lamont’s $25.5 billion plan for the second year, starting July 1, 2024 falls a whopping $405 million under the cap, more than five times the average for the past decade.

And the last time a governor pitched a cushion this large was in February 2011, when Dannel P. Malloy sought a $406 million buffer in the 2011-12 fiscal year.

But Connecticut was struggling to climb out of the Great Recession of 2007-09. Malloy was facing the largest projected shortfall in state history, a potential gap of $3.7 billion in 2011-12 unless adjustments were made. He had just proposed one of the largest tax hikes in state history and couldn’t be sure they would generate the $1.9 billion annually projected by state analysts, given the fragile economy.