The state’s top business lobby said Thursday the bipartisan $41.3 billion budget approved by the Senate is a good first step to fixing Connecticut’s long-term fiscal crisis and will provide real reforms in the way state government operates.
“It’s a good thing we got it and are getting [the budget] done,” said Connecticut Business & Industry Association President Joe Brennan. “We’ve been calling for a bipartisan approach to the budget for a long time now. Hopefully this moves Connecticut in a more fiscally responsible direction.”
Among the reforms, Brennan said, that are most attractive to the business community are:
- Stronger caps on state spending and borrowing.
- Changes to binding-arbitration and prevailing-wage laws, which dictate wages construction workers must be paid on public projects, that could help local governments save money.
- A requirement that the state legislature must approve all union contracts.
Most importantly, Brennan said, the legislature avoided any increase to sales, income and corporate tax rates.
Brennan also said the budget won’t fully solve the state’s fiscal crisis, which is being exacerbated by rising pension and retiree healthcare costs as well as a slow-growing economy, but it’s a step in the right direction and will hopefully ward off the need for future tax increases.
The state Senate approved the budget by a veto-proof majority and the House is now debating the two-year spending plan, which also makes modest cuts to local aid and provides emergency funding to Hartford so the city can avoid bankruptcy.
