Democratic Legislative Leaders Talk State Budget

House Speaker Chris Donovan and Senate President Don Williams were on WNPR’s Where We Live talking about various ways to close what looks to be a three-point-five billion dollar deficit.

 

Donovan was asked how he saw state employee unions giving back to the budget process. He said state employees haven’t gotten raises, but have taken pay cuts and paid more for health care.

 

“We ask a lot of state employees.  State employees, just the other day, had an unpaid day.  They contributed close to a billion dollars in givebacks to our state.  I want to thank them for that. I think during recession, it’s not a time for us to lay off people, we’re trying to hire people.”

 

“This is the state of Connecticut.  Are the only people who are contributing the state employees?  Are they the only ones?  Are you going to contribute?  Am I going to contribute?"

 

Williams said Malloy will have frank discussions with state unions.

 

“When he sits with unions, of course he'll be talking about wages, and possible furlough days and benefits, et cetera, to help balance the state budget, as well as the spending of every department, of every agency.”

 

When asked about specific spending cuts, Donovan said he's opposed to taking away funding from state services.

 

"I think there’s some bureaucracy we could cut back.  Certainly higher education is one place we could look.  Don and I talked about consolidating some agencies.  But there are ways that we could make our state more efficient."

 

Both Williams and Donovan said there are savings in areas like health care and energy that can be realized.  They say there are also ways to save money by restructuring some of state government. 

 

For WNPR, I’m Jeff Cohen.