Economic growth, legalizing pot, protecting climate highlight Lamont’s budget

Gov. Ned Lamont”™s new $22.3 budget proposal keeps taxes essentially flat, while projecting a budget reserve fund of $2.8 billion by the close of fiscal year 2020.

Echoing parts of his State of the State address, the proposal focuses on investing in economic growth, protecting the climate, and legalizing recreational marijuana. It would raise revenue in part by eliminating $28 million in previously approved tax relief for Connecticut businesses; establishing a tax amnesty program for certain insurance companies; and creating a new surcharge on those who pay state taxes, fees and other charges with a credit card.

The budget proposal would grow general fund spending in the 2020-21 fiscal year by 3.7% over the current year.

“Working together, efforts adopted by the legislature and signed into law are ensuring that Connecticut”™s future will no longer be defined by fiscal crisis, and instead our state has entered a new era of fiscal stability,” Lamont said. “Because of a number of new policies and efficiencies that have been enacted, these years will be defined by the largest rainy day fund in Connecticut history, ensuring that our state has a strong fiscal foundation on which to build itself up ”“ and the credit rating agencies have taken notice.

“Connecticut”™s legislature has made reforms that are moving us into the right direction,” he continued, “and I am confident moving forward that we can continue on this path and keep Connecticut in a position of strength.”

The budget also offers an increase in financial aid to municipalities of about $50 million in the next fiscal year.

Following an approach the governor and Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner David Lehman have been stressing for the past several months, the budget includes an “earn-as-you-go” incentive for businesses that add jobs. Companies that create and maintain 25 or more full-time, “good-paying” jobs will earn 25% of the income taxes generated by those jobs for up to seven years. Employers located in one of Connecticut”™s opportunity zones or distressed municipalities are eligible to earn 50% of the taxes over the same period.

The proposal also seeks to expand access to capital for small businesses, with the state partnering with lenders to partially guarantee certain loans. The state would also fully fund the current Minority Business Initiative and redouble support for women, minority, veteran and disabled business owners through targeted loan programs at community financial institutions.

Regarding health care, the budget tasks the Office of Health Strategy with monitoring and publishing progress toward annual cost and quality benchmarks, including benchmarks that would increase the provision of primary care. It would also reduce drug prices by allowing the Department of Consumer Protection to propose, in accordance with new federal guidelines, a program for safely reimporting drugs from Canada and protects small businesses and their employees by codifying current safeguards on stop-loss policies.

Other highlights of the budget include:

• Reestablishing the Office of Workforce Competitiveness as an independent office led by its own executive director. The renewed OWC will ensure the state provides every resident the education and training he or she needs to secure a good job in a growing economy by establishing a unified state strategy, launching key initiatives, overseeing workforce data systems, and convening and aligning members of the workforce ecosystem. It will be housed for administrative purposes only within the Office of Policy and Management.
• Adding two new positions in the State Department of Education”™s Academic Office so that the state can better support teachers and districts in developing high-quality, evidence-based curriculums for use in classrooms across the state.
• Funding debt-free community college for recent high school graduates with unmet financial need so no Connecticut residents have to give up on their dreams because they can”™t afford their cost.That funding is coupled with more advisers for the community colleges”™ Guided Pathways initiative so students who chose to attend community college have the support they need to thrive there.
• Providing more than half a million Connecticut workers a real opportunity to save for retirement through easy payroll deductions by offering the Connecticut Retirement Savings Authority a fresh start with staff in the Office of the State Comptroller.

Protecting Climate and Environment

• An Act Concerning Climate Change Mitigation codifies the target, currently established by executive order, to achieve a statewide zero-carbon electric sector by 2040. It also authorizes the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection authority to procure up to 300,000 megawatt hours of energy storage, demand response, and energy efficiency and to review and, if appropriate, adopt California”™s tailpipe emission standards applicable to new medium and heavy-duty vehicles.

Enhancing Public Health and Safety

• An Act Concerning Adult-Use Cannabis would protect public health by providing access to safe products, preventing advertising and retail locations that would appeal to children, and proactively updating the state”™s indoor clean air act to protect children and other individuals from secondhand smoke. It protects public safety by increasing the number of trained drug recognition experts in state and local police forces, updating traffic safety laws, reforming the administrative process that follows an impaired driving arrest, and freeing the state”™s police, prosecutors, and other public safety officials to focus on more significant crimes. It promotes social justice by automatically erasing most cannabis possession convictions and empaneling an Equity Commission to develop proposals for how the individuals and communities that have borne the brunt of the War on Drugs can benefit from the creation of the legal cannabis market. Finally, it sets up a fair tax structure that will provide meaningful new state and municipal revenues.
• Consistent with action in neighboring states, it would also ban the sale of flavored vaping products, cap the amount of nicotine in such products, and increase the penalties for selling any nicotine products to people under 21.
• Combat the risk of mosquito-borne EEE virus in Connecticut by increasing the trapping and testing of mosquitoes funding additional sprayings in mosquito breeding grounds.
• Strengthen the social safety net and respect women”™s health care decisions by stepping in to fund family planning service providers like Planned Parenthood whose budgets were cut by the Trump administration.
• Train and equip 170 new state police officers.

The full budget proposal can be found here.