CT lawmakers approve $6.6 billion for dozens of projects, then rewrite laws

CT Insider – Thursday, June 5, 2025
By Ken Dixon, Paul Hughes

HARTFORD — On the last day of the legislative session, state lawmakers Wednesday approved capital projects totaling about $6.6 billion for the two-year budget that starts July 1. That bill includes long-term bonding for lowering state energy bills, financing billions in school construction projects and expanding security measures for houses of worship.

The 256-page bond bill passed 144-4 in the House of Representatives and 35-1 in the Senate. Although the bill authorizes the spending, projects and agencies would still face scrutiny from the Office of Policy and Management before funding is authorized by the State Bond Commission, which is controlled by the governor.

Buried in the package are revisions to the state budget bill that passed the House and Senate on Tuesday. One Republican senator railed at the errors that needed correction in the bond act and chastised Democrats for using the package to skirt further debate on several issues.

The bond act includes a variety of legislative initiatives that failed to win approval elsewhere in the hundreds of bills that passed the House and Senate, including new requirements that people who bring more than 2,500 empty cans and bottles to redemption centers would have to present identification, including their residential addresses, in attempt to cut down on fraud from other states that have five-cent deposits.

“We’re trying to crack down on that,” said Rep. Maria Horn, D-Salisbury, co-chairwoman of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee. “We see a lot of trucks – according to anecdotal evidence – from out of state. That’s really a truck full of bottles. We are also providing resources for State Police to assist in that.”

“This package confirms our commitment to special education, clean water, aging in place for our older adults, childcare expansion, school repairs, school and nonprofit security, affordable housing, new home ownership, community colleges, brown field remediation, work force development and a host of other ideas and initiatives,” said state Sen. Patricia Billie Miller, D-Stamford, co-chairwoman of the bonding subcommittee.

Sens. Derek Slap, D-West Hartford and Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, said continued commitments to security at at synagogues is important. “Nobody should be afraid to pray and nobody should be afraid to worship at a place that is holy and special to them,” Slap said during the late-afternoon Senate debate. He noted that dozens of applications have been filed for the support and not all have received money. “Oftentimes on Saturday I will drive down Albany Avenue in West Hartford where there’re many different synagogues and every single one of them, there is an armed guard outside. It’s awful that this is something that’s needed.”
Tribe expansion and Capitol improvements

“It is vital that we prioritize, first and foremost, the safety of our residents, especially our Jewish residents who are currently facing the threat of increased anti-semitic attacks,” Fazio said. The bond act includes $10 million a year for increased school security and $5 million a year for non-profits including religious institutions.

Another provision indicates that the state would challenge attempts by any of the state’s Indigenous tribes if they attempted to acquire more land. “The conversion shall be deemed contrary to the interest of the state and its residents,” the bill said. CT Insider has reported that the U.S. Department of the Interior is reconsidering earlier, failed efforts by state-recognized tribes to finally gain federal recognition.

In another section, a deadline of January, 2026 is set to identify and possibly commission additional statues to be added to the exterior of the State Capitol building “that reflect the diversity, character and accomplishments of the state.”

The bond act, which culminates the state budgeting process includes grants for towns and cities, based on their size, to add to their local budgets. The amounts range from $2,620 for the town of Andover to $13.5 million for Bridgeport, $15 million for Danbury, $10.4 million for Norwalk, $10.2 million for New Haven and $9.9 million for Waterbury.

It also includes a $40 million increase in the current $50 million program for cleaning up old, contaminated industrial sites, said Sen. Ronald Napoli Jr., D-Waterbury, co-chairman of the bonding subcommittee of the Finance Committee. Napoli said that the funding would be distributed based on a formula and individual grants.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle commended the bill’s funding to continue security efforts at religious institutions, particularly synagogues that have been targets for extremists.

More funding will be available for the state’s aging-in-place programs. Converting abandoned retails strips and malls would also see bonding support in a new “Greyfield program” with $50 million for public-private partnerships run by the Department of Economic and Community Development.

“As the retail mall industry continues to decline nationwide many of our cities and towns are left with large, vacant, grey structures,” Napoli said. He said that the annual aid for town and city roads, has been increased by 30 percent.

Veteran state Rep. John Piscopo of Thomaston, a ranking Republican on the bonding subcommittee, said that after years of federal pandemic funding, the state has to cut back. “The ARPA funds during Covid, was money flying in from out of the sky for a lot of our agencies,” Piscopo said. “A few agencies grew their bureaucracy with that money. As that money dried up, we were worried that all the shortfalls were coming to the bonding subcommittee.”

He said that while the rule of government finance is not to bond for ongoing expenses, there are some instances of such tactics in the bond act.

“My idea about bonding is this,” Piscopo said. “If your town got hit by a flood and saw damage and your town doesn’t have the means to mitigate the damage, you can ask the citizens of the state of Connecticut to help.”

Other items include $75 million for information technology; $5 million for state-wide flood and resiliency mapping; $20 million for the Department of Veterans Affairs to fund renovations and improvements, plus $7.5 million to expand the State Veterans Cemetery in Middletown; and a $40 million program to install solar photovoltaic systems on state property.

The bonding legislation repeals a provision of the state budget bill that reduced the annual interest on municipal tax liens that are sold to debt collectors. The change would have reduced the annual rate from 18% to 12%. But the interest rate would have remained 18% year for liens that were not sold to a third party. In addition, the repealed section would have capped attorney’s fees in connection with each aspect of a foreclosure, sale, or other disposition of these liens.

While Bridgeport lawmakers in recent days attempted to include $100 million to help develop a site anchored by a downtown soccer field, the bond act orders the Department of Economic and Community Development and the Department of Revenue Services to assess the anticipated economic impact of the proposed Connecticut United Football Club stadium, including its economic impact and create a report on the issue by October 1. One of the issues on the development would be “when it is reasonably likely that the state may receive a return on a one hundred twenty-seven million dollar state bonding investment, taking into consideration revenue generated from such proposed stadium via payroll taxes, sales and use taxes and other revenue sources.”

The day after the state budget was approved in the House and Senate, the bonding act would also affect provisions in the previous day’s budget documents.
Amendments to previous day’s budget bill

Conservative state Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, focused on a rewritten section involving the price that could be paid for out-of-state fabricating. He noted that it could have cost the state millions of dollars in construction costs, but legislative leaders noticed it and changed it in the bond act.

“This section was a stand alone bill that could have developed a heated and lengthy debate,” Sampson said. “Everyone knows this is a highly contentious issue. The issue is, that this was passed yesterday, as part of the budget, circumventing the minority as I mentioned, but they discovered they made a mistake. They made a mistake by leaving out a word, a word that would have effectively required the state Department of Transportation to end up paying prevailing wage for countless different items in the projects that they perform. That might, in fact result in millions of dollars in additional costs.”

The bonding bill modifies provisions related to the development of the South Meadows section of Hartford. It requires the state to include the site in the basis for state payments to Hartford until the site is redeveloped and removes a provision specifying that none of the provisions apply to the Hartford Brainard Airport. It also specifies that the newly established South Meadows Development District’s powers or actions do not supersede, or authorize any conflict with, federal law or any federal aviation regulation concerning control of Hartford Brainard Airport.

Another section overturns a provision of the budget bill that reduced the annual interest on municipal tax liens that are sold to debt collectors. The change would have reduced the annual rate from 18 percent to 12 percent, which lawmakers have tried and failed to reduce in recent years. In addition, the repealed section would have capped attorney’s fees in connection with each aspect of a foreclosure, sale, or other disposition of these liens.

The bonding bill also repeals a portion of the budget bill that would have created a working group to oversee and monitor expenditures from each reserve fund of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system or the higher education institutions within CSCU.

The bond act delays the effective date of a new property tax exemption for property located on reservation land that is held in trust for a federally recognized Indian tribe by one year to Oct. 1, 2026.

The bonding bill repeals a provision in the budget bill that eliminated both the $150 application fee and $155 annual renewal fee for a paramedic license. Instead, the bonding bill eliminates the $150 application fee but retains the $155 renewal fee for the license.
Lamont’s surprise visits

It’s a semi-tradition for governor’s to address joint gatherings of the House and Senate at the end of the session. This year, Gov. Ned Lamont decided to pay informal visits to first the House and then the Senate, during a quick 45-minute jaunt through the State Capitol. Upon entering the bustling House chamber shortly after 8, Speaker Matt Ritter suggested that Lamont was available for members to detail their grievances.

State Rep. Bill Buckbee, R-New Milford, offered the governor some candy. “We’ve got a budget that I think most of us are proud of, and even if you didn’t support it, proud of the process we went through,” Lamont told reporters. “We did it with good humor with each other. We’re not Washington, we’re Connecticut.”

On the two-year $55.8 billion state budget:

“At the end of the day look at what we did on child care, look what we did on special ed, look at what we did to make a big difference for our towns and cities for years to come.”

Why visit legislative chambers instead of giving a speech?

“Ah, midnight is too late for them and it is much too late for me, and everybody seemed to love that idea.”

Overall thoughts on the session:

“I think it was pretty good. We’re on time. We have a balanced budget. Compare that to 2017, before I got here. We’re making some strategic investments that I think will make a long term difference. We’re not raising taxes, at least on individuals.”

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