Connecticut’s Democratic-controlled budget-writing committee has approved a plan that spends more than $373 million beyond the governor’s proposal but promises to generate more revenue to cover the cost, The Associated Press reports.
The Appropriations Committee passed Thursday the proposed adjustments to the second year of the two-year, $37.6 billion state budget on a close, bipartisan 29-25 vote.
Republicans decried the proposal, saying the state can’t afford to spend more money with current and looming billion-dollar budget deficits.
Democrats, who supported the measure, say the proposal pays for itself with federal aid and new tax increases, including proposed taxes on hospitals and insurance companies.
The budget plan eliminates 390 jobs at the Department of Correction to save $17.4 million. That would force the state to force certain nonviolent offenders to serve time in community-based programs, instead of prison.
The Department of Correction employs nearly 7,000 people. Of those, about 4,000 are correctional officers.
Rell dismissed the nearly $19.3 billion one-year plan as “breathtakingly inept,” claiming it includes “no real spending cuts, no agency consolidations or mergers and no reductions in the size and scope of state government.” Rell also criticized the Democrats’ budget for restoring many of the spending cuts she had proposed in health care and social service programs.
Connecticut is in the midst of a two-year, $37.6 billion budget that’s been estimated to be as much as $1.2 billion in deficit.
