HARTFORD, CT – A new bill on the House calendar in the Connecticut General Assembly will detail allocations for the $360 million or more in ARPA that was unveiled by Democratic leadership Monday morning.
The amount of leftover federal American Rescue Plan Act funding, which could still have an additional pot of $40 million added on in the case of a budget surplus, incited more debate about Connecticut’s fiscal guardrails.
Under the new allocations for the leftover funding, higher education will be receiving the largest share with an additional $160 million over what was allocated in the state budget. Speaker of the House Matt Ritter said that there could be as much as $400 million available.
Ritter has said for months that the state would need roughly $300 million to $400 million to cover additional costs, the prioritization of which would be higher education, municipal aid, mental health services, and nonprofit organizations.
“I, personally – and I think the chairwoman [Rep. Toni Walker], personally – where it came from was not as big of an issue to us as hitting that bottom line,” Ritter said. He said that appropriations were not made in the ARPA document, because that would have constituted a budget.
Walker, D-New Haven, said that part of not wanting to reopen the budget was wanting to avoid the governor’s proposed cuts to K-12 ECS funding. Education, she said, is something that is a priority for everyone in the legislature.
“We have to make sure that we do all the things that we have promised our communities who elected us,” Walker said.
Still, the way the legislature has gone about sourcing some of the additional spending doesn’t sit right with some representatives.
House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said Monday that there are in fact appropriations made in the new ARPA allocations, as well as some tax changes and revenue adjustments.
“With all of that, that is a budgetary action, which under our constitution, requires us to make sure it’s a balanced budget,” he said, adding that the Republicans’ budget proposal – which they presented two weeks ago – did its part in putting forth a balanced book for the 2025 fiscal year.
Candelora said that the new document represents ignorance toward the state’s statutory structure – namely regarding the much-maligned fiscal guardrails. The only reason the money being spent doesn’t fall under the spending cap, he said, is because it’s federal money.
Rep. Marie Horn, D-Salisbury, echoed sentiments previously shared by Ritter, saying that the guardrails shouldn’t be as strict or brittle as they are currently being interpreted. Those comments did not fall on kind ears with Candelora.
“To say that you are going to completely test the boundaries of the guardrails, and then call them a brick wall – you built the brick wall, and now you’re going to run the state of Connecticut into it,” he said.
The minority leader said that, when a fiscal analysis is done on the bill, House Bill 5523, it will be in violation of the spending and revenue caps.
In order for a budgetary action that violates the spending cap to go through, it has to be signed by the governor. That, Candelora said, is something he worries about.
“I don’t know how our governor is going to continue on the mantra that he is protecting the fiscal guardrails, when this document itself rams right through them,” he said.
Gov. Ned Lamont’s office said in a written statement Monday that typical operating costs should not be dependent on the one-time ARPA funding.
Several other priorities will also be receiving part of the unspent, one-time federal funding.
Municipalities will receive some aid from the one-time funding, and nonprofits – which have been lamenting the lack of funding and attention from the state in the second year of the biennial budget – will get an additional $50 million.
The funding equates to a 2.5% raise for nonprofit employees.
“Nonprofits who contract with the state to provide services for the state’s most vulnerable citizens, thank lawmakers for making a funding increase a priority this year. Nonprofit programs have been underfunded for nearly two decades and this increase is welcome,” CT Community Nonprofit Alliance President & CEO Gian Carl-Casa said in a statement Monday.
Another allocation under the bill would be the establishment of healthcare for board members of quasi-public agencies – something Ritter said could hopefully attract good talent and individuals to want to serve on those commissions.
