Connecticut Democratic legislative leaders want Gov. Ned Lamont to declare a fiscal emergency.
House Speaker Matt Ritter said at a news briefing in his office at the state Capitol on Wednesday that they believe it's needed to address the current $200 million shortfall in Medicaid funding.
A statewide fiscal emergency would allow Lamont to pause the state’s fiscal guardrails and enable some of Connecticut’s projected $5.6 billion budget surplus to be spent on operating expenses instead of paying down the state’s pension debt as required by law.
“I think if you got cut by say a billion plus, you might say well I’d rather backfill Medicaid. The pension fund we’d love to do, but that’s probably more of a luxury than giving people health care,” Ritter said.
The money might also be needed to mitigate cuts to federal funding anticipated from the Republican-controlled Congress and White House.
“It is not being alarmist,” Ritter said. “It's just that I read the paper today, and the House in Congress says they want to cut between 1.5 and 2 trillion dollars. That's pretty sizable. That's a quote from a congressman in Washington. So you can respond hastily or pause it. And I think we are taking the latter approach,” he said.
“I think it’s a mistake," Vincent Candelora, the House GOP leader, said in response.
“We should not be dismantling the guardrails that have protected Connecticut from overspending and protected us from tax increases,” he said.
“In the long run, that’s the direction we are going to be headed in,” Candelora added.
Lamont acknowledges that storm clouds are ahead, but he said he’d like to wait and see over the next couple of months how bad the cuts from Washington will be.
