They struggled to finally pass a two-year budget just four months ago, and Connecticut lawmakers still haven’t finished balancing the state’s books.
The Democratic-controlled General Assembly, which convenes Wednesday, will have to pick up where it left off and try again to find a way to work with Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell to cover a deficit for this year that’s ballooned to $500 million.
They’ll also have to address the deficit that’s projected in the second year of the two-year, $37.6 billion budget. An estimate back in November set the figure at $286.7 million, but that amount has likely grown as well.
In the meantime, an even larger fiscal black cloud is looming for 2011, when the deficit is projected to be $3.2 billion, or 17 percent of the budget. And legislators are expected to debate ways to begin tackling that ominous amount of red ink, such as consolidating state agencies and functions.
“I think people maybe have underestimated the crisis we are facing,” House Speaker Chris Donovan, D-Meriden, recently told a group of local small town leaders. “This is really bad, folks.”
Rell on Wednesday will address a joint session of the General Assembly and unveil her proposed changes to the second year of the two-year budget. A spokesman for Rell’s budget office would not say whether the governor also will present a new plan to cover this year’s $500 million deficit.
Rell offered a deficit-cutting plan back in December but Democrats ignored it and passed their own plan, which Rell vetoed.
Like many states across the country, Connecticut has experienced big declines in revenue. The state has lost more than 90,000 jobs since March 2008 and payroll taxes have plummeted. Sales and corporation tax collections also have dropped. (AP)
