Democratic House leaders said Wednesday they’d given up on passing a state budget before midnight – the end of the legislative session. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy warned them not to use it as a tactic to avoid tough choices.
A budget vote is now expected to take place next Tuesday, May 10.
Democratic House leaders sent out an announcement late Wednesday afternoon saying it was a matter of “fairness” to delay the budget vote because there was too little time to physically get a budget before legislators to study.
Malloy offered praise to the legislators for their work on the budget, but he also said the delay better not be a ploy. “[If] this delay begins a discussion about re-opening the agreement in order to find a way to avoid difficult decisions, that’s unacceptable,” he said in a statement Wednesday night.
He added,”If it happened too late in session to finish on time, and this delay is about giving members more time to understand what they’re voting on, that’s fine and even admirable. I said in February that we should not pass a budget on the last day of session.”
No date for a special session has been set yet but a House Dems spokesman said it would probably be next week.
In a joint statement, Speaker of the House Brendan Sharkey and House Majority Leader Joe Aresimowicz said it wouldn’t be possible to do a budget “as a matter of fairness and democracy.”
Republican House Leader Thea Klarides had been critical earlier in the day of the budget negotiations that had left her party members on the sidelines and then gave them little time to review the proposed budget.
Senate GOP leader Len Fasano said the delayed budget vote was the right decision in the interest of transparency. “With just hours left to the legislative session there was no way both chambers would have been able to thoroughly review and debate the budget at this time,” said Fasano.
Democrats had announced late Tuesday night that they had reached a budget agreement with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to close next year’s projected $960 million deficit.
Democratic leaders released few details, but told reporters during an 11 p.m. press conference that it includes $830 million in cuts.
They also said the plan contains $36 million in transfers from various funds, but no increases to taxes or fees.
Democrats also abandoned their proposal for tax-credit deferrals, a plan that would have allowed businesses to voluntarily pay increased taxes next year, with an increased benefit for tax credits two years later.
Prior to the Decision Not To Vote
Sharkey said Tuesday night he expected the budget to get a vote in both chambers ahead of today’s midnight deadline, as well as bills for the bonding package and to implement the revised spending plan.
“It’s our expectation to run this in both houses,” he said, although he acknowledged that would depend on how much debate Republicans put forward.
Fear of a Fillibuster
Sharkey and Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, said they planned to reach out to Republicans leaders to discuss the budget and the possibility of limiting debate.
Fasano told reporters after the Democrats’ announcement that he hasn’t seen the budget and doesn’t yet know how his members will respond today.
Still, he didn’t share the Democrats’ optimism that all three components for a revised spending plan could get approval today, a feat that would eliminate a need for a special session on the budget.
“It’s never been done, that I know of, in this building on a budget that’s not consentable, if you will, agreeable by most folks,” he said. “I don’t think that is plausible in this building.”
Fasano and Klarides declined during a press conference Tuesday afternoon to say if they planned a filibuster on the proposed budget, but said they wouldn’t stop their members from raising questions or objections.
Tensions between the two parties seemed to reach a boiling point during a series of press conferences throughout the day.
Republicans, seemingly preparing for the prospect of a last day vote today, expressed frustration about the budget process last June when the House began debate on the budget around 5:30 a.m. on the last day, and Democrats moved to halt debate in the Senate just before the midnight deadline.
Klarides compared the process to kindergarten, and Fasano accused Democrats, not Republicans, of walking away from budget negotiations.
“They are the ones who said we don’t want to negotiate with the Republicans,” he said, later referencing the fact that Democrats skipped two budget meetings with Malloy in the span of four days last month.
While Democrats shared few details of their own plan, Sharkey lobbed multiple jabs at Republicans for their own proposal, saying that plan relies on “phantom savings” that even the legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal analyst said wasn’t achievable.
“As we go forward and as we talk about how we’re going to make those structural changes, I just ask to look at what’s been out there over the last couple of weeks and how the package that’ll be out there tomorrow represents the true structural changes that have to happen,” he said.
Fasano said Republicans put their budget in balance during negotiations with Malloy, which Democrats didn’t attend.
Sen. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, co-chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, said the plan would consolidate six commissions to two — the one for women and children, and another on equal opportunities.
She also said the legislature has “done some signaling” about the need to curb spikes in overtime by state employees looking to boost their pensions, and agreed to increased health insurance premiums for nonunion employees.
When pressed for information on additional cuts, Democrats simply said they went through each line in the budget.
“We literally … all of us sat down through this budget, multiple times, line by line by line to try to find the kinds of cuts that would enable us to get to that number without desecrating the programs that we care about,” Sharkey said.
Looney said the revised bottom-line figure for next year’s general fund budget “is, in effect, rolled back to about the level that it was in fiscal year 2012,” which he said represents an overall spending cut of roughly 5 percent
Structural changes
Sharkey and Looney said multiple times that their budget packages include structural changes that will help close budget deficits projected to exceed $2 billion in both fiscal years 2018 and 2019.
Malloy called for such changes in his Feb. 3 budget address opening the legislative session, and a spokesman said he “look(s) forward to signing” the agreement reached with Democrats.
“This is a budget that doesn’t raise taxes and is built almost entirely on long-term spending reductions, which will help keep expenditures under control in the future,” the spokesman, Devon Puglia, said. “Our goal has been to do things differently this year, to ensure that — just like the households we represent — we do not spend money that we don’t have.”
Sen. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, co-chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, said the plan would consolidate six commissions to two — the one for women and children, and another on equal opportunities.
She also said the legislature has “done some signaling” about the need to curb spikes in overtime by state employees looking to boost their pensions, and agreed to increased health insurance premiums for nonunion employees.
When pressed for information on additional cuts, Democrats simply said they went through each line in the budget.
“We literally … all of us sat down through this budget, multiple times, line by line by line to try to find the kinds of cuts that would enable us to get to that number without desecrating the programs that we care about,” Sharkey said.
Looney said the revised bottom-line figure for next year’s general fund budget “is, in effect, rolled back to about the level that it was in fiscal year 2012,” which he said represents an overall spending cut of roughly 5 percent.
Sharkey and Looney said multiple times that their budget packages include structural changes that will help close budget deficits projected to exceed $2 billion in both fiscal years 2018 and 2019.
Malloy called for such changes in his Feb. 3 budget address opening the legislative session, and a spokesman said he “look(s) forward to signing” the agreement reached with Democrats.
“This is a budget that doesn’t raise taxes and is built almost entirely on long-term spending reductions, which will help keep expenditures under control in the future,” the spokesman, Devon Puglia, said. “Our goal has been to do things differently this year, to ensure that — just like the households we represent — we do not spend money that we don’t have.”
(Hartford Business Journal reporter Keith Griffin added additional reporting to this story.)
