HARTFORD — State lawmakers are expected to return to the Capitol on Tuesday to vote on an override of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's budget veto.
They held a press conference, Monday, after a closed door, bipartisan meeting with Governor Malloy to announce a vote will take place, Tuesday afternoon.
The Democratic governor rejected the Republican-backed budget, last week, which gained some democratic support.
“The budget I vetoed is really for all intensive purposes the budget that they talked about from May on with really almost no change,” Gov. Malloy said Monday night. “I always said I was gonna veto that.”
The veto override vote comes a week earlier than anticipated, the targeted date being October 10.
“I feel this is done in a quick manner for a reason,” House Minority Leader Themis Klarides said. “I know there’s a lot of pressure on people to override and I understand in the speaker's perspective that he would rather get this done but I don’t think this is in the best interest of the state of Connecticut.”
Representative Klarides said a vote in the house and the senate, was a vote in the house and the senate and she feels the budget which was voted on and passed, should be the basis for working forward.
House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz said he is taking advantage of an early vote.
“Is it cutting short a week of political silliness?” he said. “Absolutely.”
A back-and-forth at the podium as Klarides referred to the word “silliness,” as offensive to the people of the state.
“Because you don’t like it does not make it silly,” she said. “There is more than one option of having a governor sign a budget and that is to override a veto and because they are not willing to do that, or there is not the political will on the democrats side to do that does not make it silly, it is people lacking courage.”
When asked, lawmakers claim they’re getting along behind closed doors.
House Majority Leader Matt Ritter one of several lawmakers expressing the belief, the override will not gain enough votes from the Democratic caucus to pass.
“There’s no walking away tomorrow there’s no pouting, we’re gonna get up, there’s gonna be no budget, again as of October 3rd,” he said. “We have to get back at it, and we have limited time to do it.”
Connecticut is the last state in the nation without a budget in place for the fiscal year that began July 1.
Malloy has been running state government by emergency executive order under his limited spending authority.
Without a budget in place, cities and towns are facing major cuts in state funding this month. 85 school districts will see their share of state education grants cut to zero. 54 others would see significant cuts.
Meanwhile, city lawmakers are urging state legislatures to create a budget that prioritizes education.
"Leave your politics at the door and get your job done and get the budget done right away," says Portland First Select Woman Susan Bransfield.
Her town could lose $4.6 million if the executive orders stand. Bransfield feels a solution is needed sooner than later.
"Forget about whether they're a Democrat. Forget whether they're a Republican. They need to come to the table and they need to make sure that they put Connecticut first," says Bransfield.
Connecticut faces a projected $3.5 billion deficit over the next two fiscal years.