Rell In Budget Talks With Legislative Leaders
http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-state-budget-talks.artjun29,0,804096.story
By JON LENDER
The Hartford Courant
June 29, 2009
HARTFORD — Gov. M. Jodi Rell and legislative leaders met Sunday for the first time in three weeks to try to negotiate an agreement on a new state budget, adjourning after a couple of hours without a resolution but with at least one participant calling the session “productive.”
Both sides in the Republican-Democrat negotiations said they agreed that no statements would be made about the substance of the talks. There had been no talks since the first week of June, when the regular 2009 legislative session ended without an agreement on how to cover a budget deficit projected at $8.8 billion over the next two fiscal years that begin Wednesday.
“They’re going to meet again [today] and, in the interest of making progress, nobody’s going to be issuing any statements,” said Douglas Whiting, a spokesman for Democratic House Speaker Christopher Donovan of Meriden. He said that the talks were “characterized as productive.”
But he would not comment about what was discussed, saying “all parties agreed to no statements or releases for a period of 48 hours or so as talks continue.”
The story was the same from the Republican governor’s spokesman, Chris Cooper, who said that “all parties have agreed that there would be no media availability and no comments about [Sunday's] meeting.”
Participants, Cooper said, included Rell; Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele; governor’s budget director Robert Genuario; House Republican leader Lawrence Cafero of Norwalk; Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams of Brooklyn; Democratic Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney of New Haven; Donovan; and at least a couple of chairmen of legislative budget-related committees.
Sunday’s no-statement pact was a departure from recent days of back-and-forth public criticism.
On Saturday, Rell had signed an impending veto of the two-year budget that legislative Democrats passed Friday, calling it “quite simply unbalanced, unaffordable and unfinished.” She said that it lacks “real spending cuts.”
Rell did not date the document she signed because her veto won’t become official until she receives the Democrats’ budget bill, possibly today or early this week.
Democrats stuck by their budget bill Saturday, however. The $37 billion, two-year proposal would raise state taxes and fees by $2.5 billion — hiking income tax rates on wealthy residents. Democrats said that their budget would salvage many critical state programs and services, such as funding for nursing homes.
Copyright © 2009, The Hartford Courant
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