General Assembly Democrats have released a new budget proposal for the biennium, which begins in six days. The Senate is expected to vote on this budget proposal today, and the House on Friday. Governor Rell is expected to veto it as having too few spending cuts and too many state tax increases. It does not presently appear that Democrats will be able to override her veto. Enclosed please find a budget matrix for previous budget proposals.

Highlights of the Democrats’ new proposal are as follows:

• Reduces the Pequot-Mohegan grant by $31.2 million for FY2010. This is the same cut that had been proposed by the Appropriations Committee during the Regular Session.
• Maintains funding levels for FY 2010 from FY2009 for the following non-education grants: PILOT MME; and Department of Economic and Community Development Payment in Lieu of Taxes and Tax Abatement grants. General Fund appropriations for PILOT: Colleges/Hospitals and PILOT: State Owned Property would remain flat, but municipalities would see a reduction due to the loss of state surplus revenue used to fund the program this year. This proposal is the same as other major proposals to date.
• Maintains funding levels for FY 2010 from FY2009 for the following education grants: Adult Education; Education Cost Sharing; and Non-Public Transportation and Public Transportation of School Children.
• Removes all general fund appropriations for the Town Aid Road grant in each year of the biennium, with the expectation of state bonding for it. All the other major proposals have proposed to bond TAR – but because a state bond package has not been finalized grant amounts for TAR and LoCIP have yet to be determined.
• Reduces the Local and District Departments of Health grant by for FY2010 from FY2009 by $1.1 million. This proposal is $1.2 million above the Governors budget proposals, but $1 million below the Appropriations/Finance and Republican Alternative proposals.
• Maintains funding levels at or above FY2009 levels for many library-related line items of interest to municipalities including: State-Wide Digital Library, Interlibrary Loan Delivery Service, Legal/Legislative Library Materials, State-Wide Data Base Program, Computer Access, and the Connecticut Education Network. The Info Anytime program is reduced by $100,000.

If you have any questions, please call Barbara Rua (brua@ccm-ct.org), Gian-Carl Casa (gcasa@ccm-ct.org), or Jim Finley (jfinley@ccm-ct.org) of CCM, at (203) 498-3000.