HARTFORD - Tuesday marks day 102 since the state failed to adopt a budget since the June 30th fiscal year deadline.
Lawmakers emerged optimistic from another round of closed-door bi-partisan talks Tuesday evening.
"We have to form a budge that moves CT forward, funds the things that we think are important, education, economic development, put into place, some things that will allow municipalities to save money, and whatever that bottom line is we need to come up with the revenues to fund that," said State Rep. Joe Aresimowicz , Democratic Speaker of the House.
Legislative leaders remained tight-lipped about explicit details of this new budget but say it's based on compromises and give & take between Democratic and Republican demands.
Educational aid to towns and municipalities remain a tough subject, along with the amount of financial burden that towns have to bear when it comes to high-cost programs like teacher retirement benefits.
"A budget is a total package and we’re going to go in there and try to get the things we believe hard in to get into the budget negotiations and at the end my caucus will review the budget from top to bottom as far as we think we can negotiate to the point of a deal," said State Sen. Len Fasano, Senate Republican President Pro Tempore.
Leadership is due to meet at 11 a.m. Wednesday morning at the Capitol.
Kelly Donnelly, spokesperson for Gov. Dannel Malloy issued the following statement in response to Tuesday's press conference:
“We are eager to see details from leaders on where they've found compromise. The Governor has been very clear that our budget must be balanced with realistic spending cuts and not gimmicks or unachievable savings. We look forward to reviewing their ideas and finalizing a biennial budget in the days ahead.”