HARTFORD — The budget compromise reached between Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Democratic leaders slashes hundreds of millions of dollars in state spending — from school bus transportation and UConn to hospitals, preschools and the mentally ill.
The agreement cuts spending by more than $800 million in the nearly $20 billion state budget for the fiscal year that starts on July 1.
Meanwhile, an additional 113 layoff notices were sent out Thursday to workers in the judicial branch, bringing the total number of job cuts statewide to 889. Malloy has said that at least 2,500 positions are to be eliminated this year, the new budget agreement cutting about $325 million in employee costs.
The layoff number is in flux because it depends on the number of retirements, voluntary departures, the salaries of the departed workers and other cost-savings measures, officials said. The savings can also be reached partly by reducing overtime, which costs state government millions of dollars a year.
With time running out on Wednesday evening, Democratic leaders unexpectedly postponed a vote on the budget and promised to return next week for a special session. The decision followed months of bickering over the budget and weeks of inaction in the face of a projected $1 billion budget deficit next year.
At a midday press conference Thursday, Republican leaders welcomed the Democrats’ decision to delay the vote Wednesday evening vote, but said they have concerns about the deal.
“Now that we’ve done the right thing and pushed this forward, we all need to be prepared,” said House Republican Leader Themis Klarides of Derby.
She said that no one in the 64-member House Republican caucus favors the budget.
“If we were in charge, we would have done a budget weeks ago,” Klarides said. “If you can’t get your votes and get your organization in order, that blame needs to fall squarely on you.”
Among the concerns cited by Republicans include cuts in education, including more than $25 million for school transportation and nearly $12 million for magnet schools. The deal also reduces Medicaid rates for dentists who treat children and cuts more than $8 million from grants for substance abuse and mental health programs.
The budget deal includes a dollar-for-dollar trade-off in which Malloy agreed to $50 million less in funding for his transportation priorities, and the Democrats, who control the legislature, agreed to $50 million less for cities and towns.
Democrats fought hard during the talks to preserve cuts in the property tax on cars, which has become one of their priorities. In a compromise, they agreed to reduced funding in the first year, but gained a restoration in the second year for the original funding for all communities with a tax rate above 32 mills, including Hartford and New Britain.
But in the first year, nearly 30 communities that had been expecting car-tax cuts will not get them, according to Republicans. That money would be restored in the second year for communities such as Bloomfield, Bristol, Glastonbury, Newington, South Windsor, Vernon and Wethersfield.
The state’s wealthiest communities will not see car-tax reductions in either year.
The plan also calls for $43.4 million in cuts to the state’s hospitals, which translates into $130 million in overall cuts when federal funds are included.
“We need legislators and Governor Malloy to approve a budget that makes health care, and hospitals, a priority,” Michele Sharp, a spokeswoman for the Connecticut Hospital Association, said Thursday.
Education cuts
Crucial education cost-sharing funds that cities and towns receive would be cut by $32 million. Since that is from a base of more than $2 billion annually, some of the reductions are relatively small – and vary widely between towns. More than 100 towns, including West Hartford, Windsor and Tolland, will receive 1 percent less in the next fiscal year than they expected to receive.
But some wealthier towns, including Greenwich, Old Saybrook, Weston and Westport, will be reduced by more than 50 percent. In Greater Hartford, Glastonbury, Simsbury, Granby, East Granby and Windsor Locks will each lose less than $35,000 in educational cost-sharing funds.
Education advocates say the cuts will have a significant effect on the quality of education, pointing particularly to the state’s cost sharing money and to the elimination of $23.3 million for public school transportation and $3.5 million for private school transportation.
Joseph Cirasuolo, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, called the budget “penny-wise and pound-foolish. When you cut education, there is a ripple effect. You will reduce the quality of programs no matter how you look at it.”
Cirasuolo said the “conundrum” for communities will be whether to try to make up the difference in funding or to simply pass along the reductions to the school districts.
According to budget documents provided by House Democrats, the total cut to education is $108.6 million. This includes an $11.9 million reduction to magnet schools; a $1.7 million reduction in charter school funding; a $4.3 million reduction in special education; and a $3 million reduction in Open Choice grants, which provide funding to towns that enroll students from struggling districts.
UConn officials said the new budget is $46 million less than was originally planned for next year for UConn and UConn Health — a $19 milion cut for UConn, a $10.4 million reduction for UConn Health and a combined loss of $16.5 million in associated fringe benefits for both institutions.
“For every dollar of appropriation that is cut,” Katrina Spencer, UConn’s budget director wrote in an email, “we also lose the associated fringe reimbursement. These are real dollars that we will have to find from other sources to cover rising fringe costs.”
UConn President Susan Herbst said, “We know that the state’s leaders are doing the best they can under very difficult circumstances, and our reductions could have been much worse.”
“At the same time, continually losing critical operating dollars has a direct negative impact on the quality of education we are able to offer students as well as UConn’s ability to fully contribute to Connecticut’s economy,” Herbst said. “We are raising more private philanthropic dollars than ever before thanks to our generous donors, but that will not close the gaps in our operating budget. We will manage this reduction as well as we can. However, this pattern is not sustainable and we continue to have difficult decisions to make.”
The Board of Regents for Higher Education will receive $25.3 million less than expected next year, with that reduction spread across the state’s four regional universities, the 12 community colleges, Charter Oak State College and the Board of Regents office.
Courant staff writer Kathleen Megan contributed to this report.
