“We got a budget done a lot of people didn’t think that was going to happen and it actually came together”, Malloy said.
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May 13 Connecticut’s lawmakers moved to close a projected budget deficit of almost $1 billion on Friday, the last hurdle for a spending plan that now passes to the governor for signing before the start of the fiscal year on July 1. The House is meeting Friday.
Malloy said the budget legislation includes language that ends the practice of automatically increasing spending on state programs based on current spending levels.
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives was expected to pass the bill during a special legislative session on Friday.
But Rep. Toni Walker, a New Haven Democrat, noted how the budget cuts more than $820 million in state spending and how she has been begged by various groups to protect the funding. That meant Mr. Malloy had to accept less money for transportation projects and Democratic leaders had to accept less money for schools and cities and towns.
“We really just needed some more time”, Sharkey said.
The $19.7 billion spending package that will be considered by the state Senate today and House tomorrow will eliminate about 2,500 public employee jobs and substantially reduce future projected deficits. They predicted rape crisis counselors, probation officers, corrections officers, nurses, mental health workers and people who work with children and the disabled will be among those who will lose their jobs under the plan.
But Republican Minority Leader Len Fasano questioned why another bill that spells out details of the budget has not yet been released.
“We also must consider mandatory legislative approval of labor contracts as well as finally enacting the constitutional spending cap the voters approved decades ago – these are things that I would support if passed by the legislature”.
In recent weeks, the state has issued 650 layoff notices to executive branch employees while the judicial branch has issued 239 pink slips. “Structural change says we can’t go on living the way we’re living”.
“Certainly there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of positions that will not be filled because of this budget”, she said, adding how the Democrats made “difficult reductions” they wish they didn’t have to make.
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As an example, he said retroactive changes to taxes on hospitals could affect the Connecticut Hospital Association’s decision about whether to sue the state – the lobby has been taking steps toward doing so – but the process didn’t allow for input.
