Health care, housing funds make it into state 2008 budget package


It took a special session, but at long last both houses of the General Assembly have passed a two-year budget for 2007-09.

The Senate voted Monday and the House of Representatives at 2:30 a.m. Saturday to approve a $36 billion spending package that raises cigarette taxes by 50 cents per pack but calls for no other tax increases. Gov. M. Jodi Rell was expected to sign the bill this week, thus averting the specter of entering the new fiscal year July 1 with no budget approved.

"At the end of the day, better instincts prevailed," said state Sen. Andrew Roraback (R-30), who recently became the Senate’s deputy minority leader pro tem. "We upheld our responsibility to keep the state open and running."

Roraback added that a $900 million budget surplus "gave the governor a lot of latitude to increase spending without a lot of taxes."

Indeed, the budget calls for spending increases of 8.6 percent this year and 4 percent in 2008-09. The spending rise in 2007-08 stems mostly from dramatic boosts in aid to local schools districts and health-care spending. Rell had herself proposed an income tax increase in February to pay for an ambitious plan to raise state funding for public education, but backed off the tax increase with the large surplus accumulating in the state treasury. She also proposed eliminating the personal property tax on cars and trucks. That proposal also died.

Rell’s early budget proposal was widely condemned in the Northwest Corner, where officials cited a study from the non-partisan Office of Fiscal Analysis showing far more additional income tax revenue going out of area towns than extra aid coming in.Affordable housing gets boost

Of particular local interest, Roraback pointed to an affordable housing bill passed in the special session that will allocate $4 million to towns, the passage of a $10 million line item for a regional planning initiative, a rise in farm preservation spending and a 3 percent increase in aid to elderly care facilities such as Noble Horizons and Geer Village.

State Rep. Roberta Willis (D-64) pointed to the nearly $400 million increase in health care spending "aimed at increasing coverage and access for the uninsured, mainly for children through the existing state HUSKY program. Automatic enrollment for newborns, expanded eligibility, and higher Medicaid reimbursement for doctors and dentists form the cornerstone of the plan."

Willis added that she was disappointed the governor vetoed a legislative tax plan earlier this month that would have increased the property tax credit to $1,000 on the state income tax. She was also hoping for a more progressive income tax.

"With a budget surplus we should be giving tax cuts to those who need it most," Willis said. "But that did not happen, so I guess a budget with no tax increase is still a win."

The General Assembly has been in session since January, so both Northwest Corner legislators said they look forward to taking a break.

 

 

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