One month ago, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy delivered his budget proposal for the state”™s 2014 and 2015 fiscal years to the Connecticut General Assembly.
The budget, Malloy said, “keeps Connecticut moving forward” and “follows some of those simple principles we all agreed on two years ago: passing an honest, balanced budget; living within our means; making government smaller and more responsive; and sticking to our plan for growing Connecticut”™s economy.”
But we must ask: Is the budget honest and balanced? Are we living within our means? Does the budget proposal really make government smaller and more responsive? And are we sticking to the plan to grow business? The answers likely depend on where one sits.
If shifting funds from one department to another can count as both a new investment and a spending cut, then yes, the budget is honest.
If refinancing millions of dollars in outstanding debt and borrowing even more to ensure revenues and expenditures match counts as balancing, then sure, check off that box too.
If increasing all-funds spending by 5.1 percent from the 2013 fiscal year to the 2014 fiscal year ”” an increase that is exactly three times the 2012 increase in the consumer price index (CPI) ”” is what it takes to make government run smoothly, then of course we”™re living within our means.
If extending a tax on energy generation in a state where energy costs are considered to be prohibitively high for business helps the state economy grow, then our governor can declare a victory there as well.
John McKinney and Larry Cafero, the top Republicans in the state Senate and the state House of Representatives, respectively, called the Malloy budget “the most dishonest budget I”™ve ever seen” and a “shell game.”
The word we would use is, “confusing,” for all of the reasons stated above: the proposal shifts funds around judiciously, thereby distorting any purported spending cuts or increases; it relies heavily on borrowing; and it ultimately increases government spending while providing little in the way of tax relief for businesses.
Republicans weren”™t the only critics. In a Feb. 15 news conference organized by the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, a group of mayors, including Democrats Bill Finch of Bridgeport, John DeStefano of New Haven and Neil O”™Leary of Waterbury, criticized Malloy for balancing his budget on the backs of municipalities.
“This whole budget makes the tax structure more regressive, shrinks the tax base of the job-producing centers of the state (in the big cities) and makes their financial positions more urgent,” DeStefano said, according to published reports.
Perhaps our biggest gripe after having reviewed the Malloy budget is its claim that it shrinks the size of state government and makes it more responsive.
From a handful of so-called efficiencies, Malloy”™s budget would secure just more than $11 million in savings. To put that in perspective, the government reorganization would shave 0.02 percent off a general fund allocation of more than $41 billion for the two-year budget period.
How would those savings be achieved, one might ask?
In part, by shrinking, merging or eliminating already-understaffed advocacy groups like the Office of the Healthcare Advocate, the Commission on Aging, the Asian American Pacific Affairs Commission, the African American Affairs Commission, the Commission on Children, the Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission and the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women ”” the latter of which wouldn”™t be so permanent anymore.
In contrast, the state agency that drafted the Malloy budget, the Office of Policy and Management, would see its permanent full-time staff increase by 13 to 163 during the 2014 fiscal year.
The budget proposal also calls for the (aptly named) Office of Government Accountability to increase its permanent full-time staff by 2 to 88.
But in our estimation, the Malloy budget”™s greatest irony can be found on a page detailing the proposed allocation for the Auditors of Public Accounts, a 117-person legislative agency responsible for auditing the books and accounts of each state agency and all institutions ”” public or quasi-public ”” supported by the state.
The budget does not propose to change full-time staff levels for its chief auditor. No, the irony is that its proposed 2014 fiscal year allocation of $11.79 million is more than the total savings from government reorganization that would be achieved by the Malloy budget.
