Connecticut's municipal leaders are urging Gov. M. Jodi Rell and top lawmakers to resolve their differences and approve new school construction bonding before projects statewide fall behind schedule.

The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities sent letters Tuesday to Rell and to leaders of all legislative caucuses.

According to CCM, school systems were supposed to receive about $38 million in construction grants this month, and are awaiting between $60 million to $70 million due in mid-September.

Rell, whose budget office controls the State Bond Commission agenda, hasn't scheduled any meetings because the General Assembly hasn't adopted a bond package, a schedule of projects to be paid for with state financing over the next two fiscal years.

State government typically borrows more than $3 billion a year for construction projects for municipal schools and public colleges, universities and vocational-technical schools, highway and bridge repair and other transportation enhancements, upgrades to sewage treatment plants, and open space and farmland preservation.

More than $600 million was dedicated last year to municipal school construction. State government covers between 20 percent and 80 percent of a municipal project's cost, depending on the school system's wealth.

But the Republican governor and leaders of the Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate have been bumping heads for the past month over a much smaller component of the bond package.

The Rell administration has criticized Democrats, saying leaders are seeking too much bonding for "earmarks," nonessential projects in lawmakers' home districts that normally would be paid for with local dollars, such as athletic fields or repairs to historic buildings.

Such projects also are often called "pork-barrel" spending.

CCM wrote this week that school construction grants aren't controversial and projects shouldn't potentially fall behind schedule because of the stalled negotiations.

"The school construction grant program is a great example of the state-local partnership," CCM Executive Director James Finley wrote. "The integrity of the program is at risk unless decisive action is taken soon at the state level."

House Speaker James A. Amann, D-Milford, said two weeks ago that he wouldn't negotiate further with Rell's administration, charging the Republican governor and her staff with attacking Democratic leaders in the media.

Amann particularly objected to the administration releasing to the media a letter from Rell's budget director, Office of Policy and Management Secretary Robert L. Genuario. In that letter, Genuario claimed more than $200 million in "earmark" projects were in the bill Democrats had proposed. About three-quarters of those dollars were devoted to projects in Democratic districts.

Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn, defended Amann's position, citing a series of newspaper editorial board interviews the administration conducted. Rell has been waging a public relations campaign against Democrats while at the same time trying to negotiate with them, he said.

Rell spokesman Christopher Cooper said Tuesday that the governor had called Amann's office and is trying to restart negotiations.

Amann said today that he returned the message, but hasn't yet spoken to Rell.

But the speaker said he expects Democrats will run their own bonding bill in the next few weeks, regardless of whether it has Rell's endorsement.

He added he believes the CCM letter was prepared at the urging of the administration, and that town school projects aren't under as much time pressure as the letter implies.

"If you don't think there's been pressure from the governor's office put on Jim Finley, I'd love to get a lie detector on you," Amann said.