State Budget Gaps Linger at Year's End

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State Budget Gaps Linger at Year's End

Connecticut's 2010 legislative session is only three weeks away, but in Hartford, state lawmakers are still dealing with 2009 problems. On Dec. 15, they gaveled themselves into a special session. Later the same day, they gaveled themselves out without voting on the governor's plan to solve the $467 million budget deficit that erupted since the state's two-year, $37.6 billion budget passed on Sept. 1.

“I've done my job. It's time for the legislature to act,” Gov. M. Jodi Rell (R) told a business group the next day.

Over the past few months, state legislators around the country have been confronted with unfinished fiscal business tugging at them like a bad dream. Mid-year budget gaps have opened in dozens of states, brought on, in part, by overly hopeful revenue projections. According to the National Conference of States Legislatures (NCSL), 36 states are still facing shortfalls in the current fiscal year, even as governors are putting the finishing touches on their budget proposals for fiscal year 2011, which for most states starts in July.

Read the full report State Budget Gaps Linger at Year's End on Stateline.org.

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