Latest news with #Lamont
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an hour ago
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Ashford, Hampton, Scotland receive state grant funding
Governor Ned Lamont announced the release of state grant funds to benefit improvements in several municipalities, including four local towns. Through the Small Town Economic Assistance Program, the Office of Policy and Management and the State Bond Commission, towns can apply to receive funding and commit a percentage of local monies to complete projects. 'Our small towns are an important part of what makes Connecticut such a special place to live and work,' Lamont said. 'By partnering with each town, we can help get these infrastructure projects completed so these towns can continue to thrive, remain competitive, attract businesses and improve the quality of life for our residents.' Locally, Ashford was granted $400,000 for repaving at the Public Works Facility, with the town contributing $104,701, and Franklin received $100,000 for engineering and acquiring a generator for an emergency shelter at the Franklin Elementary School, matched by $20,000 from local funds. The Town of Hampton applied for funds for the reconstruction of Windham Road, receiving $500,000 and matching $220,000. Scotland was awarded $248,651 for improvements to the community hall at the Public Safety Complex, with taxpayers contributing $27,628. In all, 46 towns received approximately $30 million dollars in funding.
Yahoo
a day ago
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Gov. Lamont: Budget on the ‘1-yard line'
HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — Gov. Ned Lamont said a deal on the next two-year state budget is 'virtually there.' Lamont has been in closed-door negotiations with the Democratic leaders of the state legislature for several days now hammering out the details of the spending plan. Connecticut lawmakers 'close to a deal' on two-year state budget, Speaker Matt Ritter says This is the centerpiece of the legislative session is the culmination of months of deliberation.A two-year, budget over $50 billion dollar that funds everything from Medicaid to UConn to the state police to aid that local school districts rely on. The overarching issue is how to reconcile differences between the governor and his fellow democrats in the legislature over how much to increase spending by. Democrats wanted to present increases that were larger than the ones put forth by Gov. Lamont. Watch the video in the player above. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
a day ago
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After clash, ‘substantial' x4 progress on CT budget deal; ‘We're not going to raise taxes'
Only hours after a public clash, negotiators made major progress on a new, two-year state budget that could lead to a final vote as early as Monday. House Speaker Matt Ritter of Hartford had tangled with Gov. Ned Lamont's administration to the point that Ritter threatened to pass a one-year budget. That would have broken a tradition lasting more than 30 years as the state always passes two-year budgets in order to look ahead for the fiscal outlook. But after a logjam was broken, the one-year plan was essentially off the table Thursday. 'We made substantial, substantial, substantial, substantial progress,' Ritter said, repeating the word four times. One of the reasons for the progress, he said, is that negotiators decided to pre-pay $200 million for the pension obligations for public school teachers that creates extra room under the spending cap and helps to balance the budget. 'The key to the budget deal will be the teacher pension,' Ritter said. After numerous complaints at public hearings and private discussions this year, the public colleges will receive millions of dollars more than some expected. The University of Connecticut will receive $35 million more than the governor's proposal in the first year, even though that total is less than what the budget-writing committee had recommended. UConn would then receive an additional $10 million more in the second year, he said. The Connecticut State University system, which includes the 12 community colleges, will rely on its large fiscal reserves in the first year, which had been recommended by the budget committee. CSCU would then be increased by $10 to $15 million higher in the second year. But Ritter stressed that the totals for the second year, which would start in July 2027, could change. 'For people that get too worried about year two, we come back and revisit things and see where we are,' Ritter told reporters, adding that he had delivered the latest news to UConn President Radenka Maric. Ritter also stressed that the final details were still being written by the nonpartisan staff — a laborious process that traditionally takes 48 hours after a handshake agreement. 'There is no deal,' Ritter said late Thursday morning. 'I want to be very clear. We have not had that handshake.' On the tax side, a proposal to increase the capital gains tax that had been favored by liberal Democrats will not be in the final deal. The legislature's finance committee voted to raise taxes on the state's wealthiest residents by imposing a capital gains surcharge of 1.75 percentage points on top of the 6.99% rate that the wealthiest earners currently pay, meaning that the new rate would be 8.74%. But Lamont strongly opposed that idea as he has during his entire tenure as governor. Lamont said he too was happy with the overall progress on the two-year, $55.5 billion spending plan. 'We're going to have a good budget,' Lamont told reporters at the state Capitol. 'It's going to be done on time. We're not going to raise taxes. We're going to be able to honor the commitments to the most vulnerable. A budget is a reflection of our values. I think we're in a good place.' In a trade-off with Lamont, the final deal is expected to include the creation of a new child tax credit for the first time in state history. House Democrats prefer the child tax credit instead of Lamont's proposal to increase the popular property tax credit on the state income tax to $350 per tax filer. As such, the credit would remain at $300 per year. While the final version of the bill has not been released, the latest Democratic proposal calls for a permanent, refundable credit of $150 per child for a maximum of three children, or $450 per year. That represents a sharp drop from an original proposal of $600 per child for an overall total of $1,800 per year. With various pressing needs on the tax and spending sides of the complicated state budget, lawmakers say they are often unable to award as much tax relief as they would like. Democrats have been pushing for the full tax credit to be available to single parents earning up to $100,000 per year, heads of households earning up to $160,000 per year, and couples filing jointly earning up to $200,000 per year, according to an analysis by the legislature's nonpartisan fiscal office. The credit would start on Jan. 1, 2026 and would save families a combined $82.7 million per year. Besides the budget, another key bill in the final days of the session is the so-called 'implementer' that provides specific details to implement the $27 billion annual spending plan. In the past, the 'implementer' has sometimes turned into a hodgepodge of legislation that failed in various committees and then was jammed into the implementer at the last minute, creating bills that were so large that legislators would often miss key provisions that were purposely buried in obscure language. Ritter described it as a 'tight implementer,' adding, 'So far, it's the best one I've seen.' House Republican leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford was not pleased because the budget talks have been between Lamont and top-level Democrats who control both chambers of the legislature. 'When Republicans are not in the room, bad things happen,' Candelora told reporters Thursday. 'I think we are going to see that this budget is going to be cobbled together with gimmicks to end-around the spending cap. … I want a real, two-year budget that is based in reality.' Breaking with the tradition of not spending precious debate time on bills that will be vetoed, Ritter said the state House of Representatives will be debating a controversial bill on awarding unemployment compensation to striking workers. The workers would become eligible after striking for more than 14 days. The tradition was adopted so that bills would not take up precious time in the final days of the legislative session, which ends at midnight Wednesday, when some bills will be left on the table with no time for a vote. Ritter has long maintained the tradition, but this year will be an exception. 'This is year three. It's time to have that issue addressed one way or another,' Ritter told reporters. 'We have tried very hard in the House to find compromise, including last year's bill. We're going to let it go on the board. … I think there's a solution there somewhere, but we haven't been able to find it. That's the one exception we're going to make to that rule this year.' Known for accurately counting votes, Ritter said there would be at least 76 votes to pass the striking workers bill, but he said the House Democrats cannot muster 101 votes to override Lamont's expected veto. The 102-member House Democratic caucus has at least 20 moderate members who can break ranks with their colleagues and block any veto overrides. Candelora blasted the bill, saying it was purposely written to help unions. 'I think it's sending the wrong message to the state of Connecticut,' Candelora said. 'If you think about all the bills we've done, we do labor bills every other day in this chamber, but we don't have conversations about how to grow Connecticut's economy. So we continue to see bills that are choking out our businesses in the state of Connecticut for a very small population of union workers. … We have abused our unemployment system in Connecticut.' Democrats have been under extreme pressure on the bill from union members, who have helped Democrats win elections for decades and can also find candidates to force primaries against incumbent Democrats. The bill passed this week on strict party lines by 24-11 in the state Senate. While the precise timing was still up in the air, the bill will likely be debated on Friday or Saturday – when the House will be in session as they rush to finish their work by June 4. Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@
Yahoo
2 days ago
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Connecticut lawmakers ‘close to a deal' on two-year state budget, Speaker Matt Ritter says
HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — With the clock racing toward the end of the state legislative session on June 4, the Democratic Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives said leaders are 'substantially close to a deal' on the next two-year state budget. 'Hopefully, we'll have a handshake agreement tomorrow,' State Rep. Matt Ritter, the House speaker, said late Wednesday evening. Lamont, State Democrats battling over length of budget The announcement that leaders are nearing a final deal on the budget comes after months of back-and-forth over how much to increase state spending. Legislative Democrats, led by Ritter and State Senate President Martin Looney, have consistently called for larger increases than those proposed by Gov. Ned Lamont in his budget proposal, which was rolled out in February. Budget talks between the Democratic legislative leaders and the governor's administration grew in intensity in recent weeks, with a particularly notable exchange unfolding in public throughout the day on Wednesday. On Wednesday morning, Ritter publicly suggested that the state should adopt a one-year budget rather than the traditional two-year spending plan. It's a maneuver that is without precedent in the recent history of the state legislature but one that Ritter said could help the state address a series of overlapping funding conundrums it faces right now. The next state budget, Ritter said, will require leaders to delicately thread a needle between several competing interests. Lawmakers must contend with the state's system of legal spending controls, including a cap on the overall size of the budget, while also trying to respond to the requests of local school districts, nonprofit service organizations, healthcare providers, childcare advocates and higher education institutions — all of whom have been clamoring for more state funding. Complicating matters is the potential for funding cuts from the federal government. A good way to thread the needle between all those factors, Ritter suggested Wednesday morning, is a one-year budget. Several hours after Ritter made his comments on the wisdom of a one-year budget, Lamont summoned reporters to his office to respond. 'I just think we should sit down and try it again rather than run out and say, 'I give up and let's do a one-year budget,'' Lamont said. 'That just breaks every commitment we've made to the taxpayers of the state over the last 40, 45 years.' Lamont's apprehension toward the idea of abandoning its decades-old practice of budgeting on two-year cycles was shared by leading Republicans in the legislature. 'I think this is fiscal irresponsibility,' State Sen. Steve Harding, the leader of the State Senate's 11-member Republican caucus, said. 'It's political posturing and frankly what's gonna happen is you're gonna see at home, tax increases to make up for this political posturing going on, this fiscal irresponsibility going on, this short-term planning going on.' While the governor wasn't as explicit in his criticism of the one-year budget concept, he did say that he was inclined to veto such a plan if it ever reached his desk. After the public volley between Ritter and Lamont, closed-door discussions between the two camps resumed. Late Wednesday evening, top Lamont administration officials convened in Ritter's office for a meeting with the two Democratic leaders. By the time the two camps concluded their talks, word began to spread among legislators and Capitol insiders that a two-year budget deal was close. Multiple lawmakers briefed on the talks told News 8 they expected the deal to be announced on Thursday, echoing Ritter's statements. The exact details of the deal discussed on Wednesday evening were not immediately available, but Ritter did offer insights into the broad outlines of the deal he hopes will be informally agreed upon on Thursday. 'I think we've moved a long way, I think we're able to fund things that we weren't able to fund prior,' Ritter said. Lawmakers are set to reconvene on Thursday morning. Stay with News 8 as this story unfolds. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
2 days ago
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Lamont, State Democrats battling over length of budget
HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) — There's a budget battle brewing at the state Capitol. Gov. Ned Lamont and his fellow Democrats in the legislature both came out Wednesday with rivaling views of what the state's next budget should look like. The legislative Democrats want to increase spending by more than what Gov. Lamont wants. And the legislative Democrats are now pushing the idea of passing a one-year state budget instead of the normal two-year state budget. The reasons they want to do a one-year budget rather than a two-year budget are very technical. But the basic point is this: they want more flexibility when it comes to the state's system of spending controls, specifically the legal cap on state spending that is supposed to set a hard ceiling on the budget. They believe if they have to do a two-year budget, the constraints of the state's system of spending controls, paired with any funding cuts from Washington D.C., would put them in a position of having to potentially pull back on spending on priorities like education. They're being very assertive in making that argument. 'The legislative branch is not backup singers,' State House Speaker Matt Ritter (D-1st) said. It is a co-equal branch of government and it's not going to just bend a knee because somebody says on a sheet of paper, 'Just make these cuts and we're gonna go home.' There are opinions in there. Passionate opinions. And we have the tough job of threading that needle, and the needle right now, I believe, is a one-year budget.' Gov. Lamont does not seem friendly to the idea of a one-year budget. 'If we can find some common ground — meet in the middle,' Gov. Lamont said. We're not talking about cuts, we're talking about how much we increase. I think we can give the taxpayers of the state of Connecticut the confidence that we've got an honestly balanced two-year budget just like we've done for the last 40 years.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
