Transportation lock box falls short
Hours after the state Senate unanimously approved a proposed constitutional amendment Tuesday to protect transportation funding, the measure failed to pass in the House of Representatives with the support required to put it on the 2016 statewide ballot.
Instead, the 100-40 House vote means that a constitutional amendment will not reach voters until the 2018 gubernatorial election, if the General Assembly approves the proposal that year. It needed 114 votes on Tuesday ”” three-quarters of the House ”” to present the question to state voters next year.
Veteran Rep. Bob Godfrey, D-Danbury, an opponent of highway tolls, voted against the constitutional amendment. He warned that the bill would push the state toward the return of a toll system.
“It doesn”™t work,” he said of the goal of to protect the transportation fund from being raided by cash-strapped future lawmakers. “It”™s a paper tiger. It”™s a set-up for putting up tolls in the state of Connecticut.”
The House on Tuesday voted 75-65 to approve budget adjustments that the Senate had approved, mostly along party lines, a few hours earlier. The current $20 billion budget will be adjusted by about $350 million, including about $196 million in cuts and $136 million in new revenue.
The state House and Senate both approved the following budget adjustments on Tuesday that include $68MÂ from Medicaid payments in the Department of Social Services; $12MÂ from magnet schools; $6MÂ from the Department of Developmental Services; $4MÂ from the General Assembly; $2.6MÂ from the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection; $2MÂ from statewide marketing, $26,000Â from Connecticut”™s Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport and $18,000Â from the state”™s witness protection program.
The legislation will adjust the budget that takes effect next July 1 by more than $193 million, and include a $19 million reduction in a controversial corporate tax that had drawn the ire of companies including Fairfield-based General Electric.
House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, said she was glad Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Democrats invited Republicans to discuss a potential bipartisan bill. But in the end, GOP lawmakers wanted more in the way of long-term structural changes, including a stringent cap on spending and the legislative power to reject union contracts.
“The people of this state do not trust us,” Klarides said. “They don”™t trust us because we have not proven we”™re able to do the job we were elected to do.”
Democrats have a 21-15 majority in the Senate and a 87-64 edge in the House.
“Ninety percent of this package was agreed to on both sides of the aisle,” House Majority Leader Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, said at the end of the debate.
Malloy agreed.
“While we couldn”™t achieve a bipartisan vote, we had a bipartisan process to lead us to the vote tonight,” the governor said in a statement after the House vote.
State Sen. L. Scott Frantz, R-Greenwich, warned it might be too late to stop the migration of wealthy Fairfield County residents. He described two couples in the lucrative private-investment industry, acquaintances of his, who are planning to leave.
“Our tax base is leaving the state of Connecticut,” Frantz said. “It”™s irrefutable, what”™s going on in this state. If we don”™t get this right, there”™s not going to be a future for the state of Connecticut.”
“If the wealthy of Connecticut who love this state and love the quality of life can take their wealth elsewhere because we”™re not being responsible with the tax dollars that they”™re paying, what”™s that tell you?” asked Sen. Michael A. McLachlan, R-Danbury. “If we keep kicking the money generators, the wealth generators, the job generators, we”™re really kicking ourselves.”
The budget restores about half of the unilateral cuts to state hospitals that had been ordered by Malloy during recent months, as shortfalls in revenue increased the size of the deficit in the first year of the biennial budget. Malloy originally cut hospitals by $192 million, but then restored $14 million for smaller hospitals, including Griffin Hospital in Derby.
Both bills originated in the Senate.
During the House debate, Rep. Gail Lavielle, R-Wilton, said the transportation proposal had some weaknesses that would allow the General Assembly ways to change the funding stream.
“I do think it can be stronger,”said Lavielle, who voted for the bill along with 25 other Republicans.
Rep. Mitch Bolinsky, R-Newtown, said he wished the transportation-funding bill did not include so many weaknesses.
“This is not a lock-box,” he said. “This is a colander. We can do a whole lot better.”
Republicans attempted to make two changes to rules. One of the proposals would have changed the way lawmakers vote on union contracts; and the other would have required a recalculation of the state”™s constitutional cap on spending. The measures failed in the Democrat-dominated House and Senate.
Ken Dixon is a reporter with Hearst Connecticut Media.