Senators Don Williams, Toni Harp On State Budget Deal With Gov. Malloy

The Hartford Courant’s Jon Lender reports on the state budget deal between Democrats and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy:

Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, told reporters in the Capitol press room Tuesday that he wishes the state didn’t face the $200-million deficit for the current fiscal year that now needs to be closed through the “budget adjustments”  — but he said it amounts to 1 percent of the annual $20-billion budget, much smaller than the 15-percent gap that had to be closed a year ago.

“We would like it of course to be zero, but coming in at a 1 percent shortfall in these continued tough times, I think, is a significant accomplishment,” Williams said. “So the fact that we will be able to balance this budget without the kind of major pain and suffering that we’ve seen the last two budget cycles, in the depths of this national recession, I think is a step forward for the state.”

State Sen. Toni Harp, D-New Haven, co-chair of the legislature’s appropriations committee, stood next to him and said: “Every department has gotten cuts, and we decided that rather than cut through lapses, which is kind of a tricky  way of cutting, …  we’ve raised the lapses into the budget so the budgets are all cut. Every budget’s current service is less than it was last year except for education. And so we’ve basically made strides to assure that the reductions are reductions that are going to carry through. And it gives us an opportunity to look at what we really, really need to do as a state and what things are important to do, and to have the departments look at becoming a little slimmer, a little more nimble. And, you know, they’re not really happy – but the reality is that they can do it. And we think that this is a budget that we can grow on as state, and that we can reform what we do. … We’ve done it in a way that really hasn’t hurt any community. And I think that is critically important.”

Williams said, “If you back up the last two cycles, and this year as well, we’ve been able to reduce really substantial deficits” amounting to several billion dollars. “And Senator Harp is right – we’ve done it without savaging municipal aid, without savaging aid to education,” Williams said. “And that, quite frankly, is how many other states across the country have done it, and they’re suffering as a result. … I think that is a fairly remarkable achievement, given where we were two years ago.”

Williams was asked about Republicans’ criticism that the budget is full of gimmicks.  He said: “Will you be able to find  that people probably could find at the edges of this budget areas where we could have done a little bit better here and there? Of course.  But compared to previous budgets submitted by Republican governors, this budget is about as good as it gets in times of economic crisis. We are moving  in the right direction in terms of having an honest budget that made tough decisions – deep budget cuts, on the one hand, unpopular tax increases last year – but they put us in a place where right now Connecticut is better off in terms of its budget than many, many other states.”

When asked about the decision to delay the implementation of generally accepted accounting principles, Williams responded: “All along when the budget was passed last year, GAAP was going to be funded out of surplus.  And if you remember last year, I think some of the Republican leaders were saying, ‘Look they have built in a billion-dollar surplus in this budget. … And folks were anticipating the economy coming back and Connecticut having a substantial surplus to fund not only GAAP, but probably to re-fund the Rainy Day Fund as well. But, in point of fact, … we’re still suffering the effects of the worst recession in our lifetime, and the economy has not come back as fast as it did after almost every other recession that we have lived through.  So, in point of fact, we don’t have that billion-dollar surplus that the Republicans predicted. We don’t have any surplus. So to be able fund GAAP out of surplus, which was the plan, is not possible.”