HARTFORD Majority Senate Democrats, under fire from Republicans who were exiled from recent budget negotia-tions, succeeded in pushing through a two-year $31.2 billion spending plan Tuesday that Gov. M. Jodi Rell will sign.
The nearly four-hour debate culminated in a 25-to-11 vote, about 16 hours after the House voted early Tuesday by 100 to 50 to accept the budget that will take effect July 1.
Rell immediately said she would sign the budget, which avoids the sin taxes she proposed in February and the surcharge on the incomes of the state's wealthiest that Democrats had planned. A proposed hike in statewide bus fares also was eliminated.
“For just the second time in five years we have a budget agreement on time and I think the Legislature should be proud of that,” Rell said, stressing that her transportation initiative remains to be acted upon.
The budget, which has an 8.7 percent spending increase in the first year and a 3.3 increase in the second, spends most of the state's anticipated $700-million surplus, only placing $76 million in the emergency-reserve fund.
But Democrats said it helps cities and towns, allows continued health care for low-income parents under the HUSKY pro-gram, and gives nursing homes $120 million a year in fees that can leverage federal Medicaid funding.
It extends a 20-percent tax surcharge on corporations in the first year and 15 percent in the second; and it rolls the state's succession and gift taxes into a single tax on estates over $2 million.
“This is a decent budget,” Sen. Ernest E. Newton II, D-Bridgeport, said during the afternoon-long Senate debate. “This is probably one of the most-fairest budgets I've seen in a long time.”
“Stratford is talking about closing two schools not one, but two,” said Newton, who also represents a portion of that town's South End, stressing the need for more education funding.
Stratford will get $860,000 more next year in educational funding.
“I know sometimes we wish we had no poor people, no poor schools, no problems in our cities and towns, so the General Assembly would not have to meet those obligations,” Newton said, “but we do have those obligations.”
Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford, co-chairwoman of the Select Committee on Veterans' Affairs, said she was proud that the budget includes a service bonus for veterans and establishes a relief fund for military families.
One Republican, Sen. John Kissel of Enfield, joined the 24-member Senate majority in finalizing the package.
But most GOP senators, channeling pent-up frustration left over from being shut out of this year's budget negotiations between the Republican governor and the Democratic House and Senate majorities, blasted the package.
They charged that the budget is unfair to the wealthy and the businesses that provide employment to state residents.
Sen. John McKinney, R-Fairfield, said the most important thing lawmakers owe their constituents is discipline in spending tax dollars.
“Now I know there are a lot of people in this building that think it's actually our money, but it's not,” McKinney, deputy minority leader of the 12-member caucus. “Sadly, this budget excludes 1.2 million people, represented by a third of our Sen-ate, by our caucus, who were left out of this entire budget process.”
McKinney charged that since the budget exceeds the constitutional spending cap, it ignored the statewide 1992 vote ap-proved by more than 80 percent of electors including 17,200 in his hometown of Fairfield, over the 3,700 town residents who voted against it.
“That's not even close, ladies and gentlemen, that's the overwhelming view of the people of the state of Connecticut,” McKinney. Rell, a Republican, on Monday night signed a document allowing the budget to exceed the spending cap and three-fifth votes in the House and Senate ratified it.
“Sadly, this is a day in Connecticut where we continue business as usual on our budget and continue the fiscally irresponsible practices of the recent past,” McKinney said. “We used surplus in the hundreds of millions of dollars for ongoing expenditures.”
“I think it's very sad that we're putting an additional burden on the family,” Sen. Judith G. Freedman, R-Westport, said. “Where is our compassion?”
“Unfortunately, the document before us today does not have a single Republican's fingerprints on it because we weren't invited to the meeting,” Sen. David J. Cappiello, R-Danbury, said.
Sen. William H. Nickerson, R-Greenwich, ranking member of the Finance Committee, said that the state's history with tax hikes is that they are actually disincentives, like higher cigarette taxes that discourage smoking.
“If you tax something, you'll get less of it,” Nickerson said.
The Legislature ends the long, 22-week budget-setting session at midnight tonight. Lawmakers are likely to come back, though, to enact bills to trigger the budget on July 1 and commit to long-term spending programs in the so-called bond package.
Ken Dixon, who covers the Capitol, can be reached at (860) 549-4670.
