By Christopher Keating
The Hartford Courant
HARTFORD, Conn. — Gov. Dannel P. Malloy released a revised budget Tuesday afternoon that closes the remaining gap of a projected $922 million deficit for the next fiscal year by cutting spending and eliminating 2,500 positions.
Malloy says he was forced to offer an updated, revised fiscal plan because the legislature’s budget and tax committees only filled a budget hole of about $570 million – leaving a remainder of more than $350 million that needs to be cut.
Malloy’s overall budget will eliminate 2,500 state jobs in a massive scaling back of state services. Currently, there are about 650 open positions from vacancies and retirements in the executive branch – meaning there would be about 1,850 layoffs. The layoffs have already started in various departments, and some employees were told to stop working and go home immediately.
State AFL-CIO president Lori Pelletier expressed outrage that about 40 clerical employees were laid off via telephone in a conference call. Saying they were “mostly minority women,’' Pelletier said they should have been told face-to-face about the layoffs.
“It’s a horribly demeaning process, and it doesn’t need to happen,’' Pelletier said.
Malloy told reporters that he was the only one who had offered a plan that fills the entire budget gap.
“We have an obligation as elected officials to tackle the full scope of our challenge,’' Malloy said in a statement. “That means we must align our spending with the revenue we actually have, not the revenue we wish we had. Our expectations need to change – we cannot afford to fund everything we always have. And we need to change the way we budget.’'
Malloy added, “If we are to do what’s right for the state, if we are to put Connecticut on a better path for the long-term, then we need to make tough but necessary decisions now to adapt to our new economic reality. That’s what this budget does.”
Malloy’s latest effort to balance state spending will affect virtually all areas of state services, from after-school programs for poor children and teen pregnancy prevention to tourism promotion to the state police and prisons.
The budget targets a number of programs. Among other things, Malloy’s proposed budget would:
• eliminate $15 million in funding for arts, tourism and other community grants;
• close the Department of Social Services office in Torrington;
• eliminate grants for after-school programs in low-income school districts;
• cut Education Cost Sharing grants to munipalities by $43.4 million;
• reduce grants to charter schools by $2 million;
• consolidate state detention centers in Hartford, saving $11.1 million.
Malloy’s office said his new plan would ask about 5,000 “non-union employees, appointees, and elected officials in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches to pay 20 percent for their health care benefits, creating a savings of as much as $5 million per fiscal year moving into the future.” Currently, those employees pay an average of about 12 percent for their healthcare premiums.
Legislative Republicans responded to Malloy’s cuts and said that the state must make long-term revisions.
“We thank the governor for recognizing the full scope of the state’s sizable deficit, however the path to attain long-term fiscal stability is not through layoffs and budget cuts alone. They address the effect, but they do not alleviate the cause. We need to focus on rethinking policies to ensure our state lives within its means moving forward. We need to budget for generations, not elections,’' Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano of North Haven and House Republican Leader Themis Klarides of Derby said in a joint statement.
“Republicans recently proposed over a dozen long-term initiatives to move our state forward. At the very least, we are calling on legislative leaders to make changes including but not limited to the following three: (1) mandatory approval of labor contracts by the General Assembly, (2) capping bonding, and (3) creating an Office of Overtime Accountability.’'
Malloy was scheduled to speak with reporters about his proposal on Tuesday afternoon.
Copyright 2016 The Hartford Courant