Madison Leaders Implore Legislature To Override Malloy's Veto

By Jack Kramer, Correspondent

GUILFORD, CT — Republican first selectmen from Madison, Guilford, Branford and Durham - joined by State Rep. Noreen Kokoruda, R-Madison, implored legislators Wednesday to override Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s veto of the two-year, $40.7 billion budget.

The officials asked the representatives to push back against Malloy even though not a single House representative switched sides on Tuesday and voted to override.

“I know its a long shot,” Kokoruda said at a gathering of officials at a press conference on the Guilford Green. “But this is a crisis.”

Kokoruda said she knows the approved budget “was hardly perfect.” But she said that it was unfair to towns in Connecticut who approved municipal budgets months ago to still not know what if any state funding they will receive months later.

“We’ve pulled the rug out from underneath them,” Kokoruda said.

She said the purpose of Wednesday’s press conference was “to keep building momentum” to try and find more votes for an override. “We just have to keep reaching out to legislators,” she said. “We have to find more votes.”

If that doesn’t work, she added, then legislators and the governor need to get a new budget plan together that works better for towns than the executive order plan the state is currently operating under.

Kokoruda and Republican first selectmen from Guilford, Branford, Durham and Madison called on legislators to override Malloy’s veto of the budget that narrowly passed through the House and Senate.

On Tuesday a hastily called special session of the House didn’t lead to a veto override, prolonging the budget stalemate now in its fourth month.

After House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz called for any legislators who were on the prevailing side of the budget to move for reconsidering of Malloy’s veto - the chamber fell silent.

As House speaker, Aresimowicz is the only one with the ability to raise the issue again. On Tuesday, he said he wouldn't.

Back on the Guilford Green, the area first selectmen said they were tired of the budget shenanigans in Hartford and tired of their towns being the fall guys for the state’s fiscal ineptness.

“It is unfair that we are being punished,” Guilford Republican First Selectman Joe Mazza said, adding he was referring to towns such as his own, Branford, Madison and Durham.

“Because we have managed our towns he (Malloy) is taking it out on us,” Mazza said.

Mazza said Guilford stands to lose about $3 million in state aid under budget proposals that he’s seen.

He said it is only through Guilford’s fiscal prudence that he hasn't had to, and doesn’t plan to, send out any supplemental tax bills. He added, however, that a resolution of the budget stalemate in Hartford has to be reached soon for that to continue to be the case.

Madison’s Tom Banisch implored the governor and legislature to get to work “on a budget that does not add any additional property taxes on towns.”

He added that switching any portion of teacher retirement costs from the state to the towns, which the governor has proposed doing, would be by anyone’s definition an increase in property tax.

Both he and Branford’s Jamie Cosgrove reiterated a theme that was emphasized at a meeting of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities on Tuesday - that any final budget agreement needs to also address the issue of unfunded mandates and liabilities and binding arbitration laws.

“Municipal aid did not create this fiscal crisis,” Cosgrove said. “We need to address the root cause which are these mandates that we have no control over.”

Durham First Selectwoman Laura Francis said the budget situation is “frightening my residents.”

She noted that because Durham is a town that is part of a regional school district whose school budget is set by referendum, her town has no control over overall school spending.

Photo by Jack Kramer