There’s two weeks left in Connecticut’s legislative session, and Governor Ned Lamont (D) said he’s confident the budget will be ready on time.
The state’s spending plan for FY 2025 has been a hot topic this session.
Lamont has said he is not in favor of amending the state’s fiscal guardrails. But on Monday, he told reporters he is considering reallocating federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money to support different sectors of the state.
“The last of the ARPA, I think we found $250 million,” Lamont said. “We're sort of negotiating with the legislature on how they want to allocate those additional resources. Of course, I think that should not go to ongoing expenses as one-time money should go to one-time expenses.”
The Lamont administration directed all state agencies to tally their remaining ARPA funds last month.
He said using the funds to offset other state needs could be considered acceptable by both Democrats and Republicans, who have differed in their approach to state spending.
Democrats want to reform the state's fiscal guardrails to support education, healthcare and nonprofits, but Republicans have sided with Lamont and are in favor of keeping costs down.
“[ARPA is] already outside of the guardrails. This is not free money — It's not like it was sitting in a shoebox somewhere,” Lamont said. “It was allocated in other places, be it COVID or ventilation. And now the legislature said we may have some other priorities for this money. And so that's why we have a legislature. We sit down and talk about that.”
In total, the state has been awarded around $2.8 billion in ARPA funds since 2020.
