Date: Fri 09-Feb-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: ANDYG

Quick Words:

state-budget-Rowland

Full Text:

with cut: Rowland Proposes $10 Billion State Budget

B Y A NDREW G OROSKO

Governor John G. Rowland has proposed a budget of $10.08 billion for the

1996-97 fiscal year, reflecting a 2.1 percent state spending increase over the

current fiscal year.

Gov Rowland presented his budget proposal Tuesday at the opening session of

the state legislature in the state Capitol. During the next four months,

legislators will review the governor's spending proposals in fashioning a

budget.

The governor proposes large spending increases to better meet the needs of

children and the elderly. The proposed budget also calls for reductions in the

state's work force and welfare spending.

The spending proposal seeks added tax cuts and credits for businesses,

increased funding to economically stimulate the state's large cities, and the

reorganization of some parts of state government.

The governor's various spending increases and decreases result in a $73

million spending cut compared to what legislators last year had approved for

the 1996-97 fiscal year in a two-year budgeting plan.

In his speech to members of the State Senate and the State House of

Reprsentatives, Gov Rowland said "We must create a business climate that

generates jobs for members of the Connecticut family to prosper. It means

controlling the size and scope of state government so that businesses can

create jobs.½

"And there is no more imporatnt place to restore jobs than in our cities... I

cannot overstate the problem. Some of the neighborhoods in these once grand

cities have become warehouses of crime, misery and decay," he said.

Collectively, New Haven, Hartford, Bridgeport and Waterbury have lost more

than 51,000 jobs in the last ten years, and in those cities, high school

dropout rates are more than double the state average, he said.

The governor encouraged the use of public-private partnerships, such as those

that exist in several cities, as an engine of economic revitalization.

"I am asking you to increase urban revitalization money in the coming year's

capital budget. These monies will be targeted to our most distressed urban

centers for economic and community development," he said.

"On the issue of taxes, I will not waiver in my commitment to reduce taxes.

State income tax relief and property tax relief will stand. The tax cuts are

law and they will stay law. Any bill that reaches my desk that proposes to

repeal the tax cuts will be vetoed," he said.

"Education is the bridge from poverty to productivity," the governor said.

The governor prosposes that parents who receive welfare payments make their

children attend school or lose their welfare benefits.

"There is no doubt that teen pregnancy and substance abuse are the root causes

of most of our problems," he said. The governor proposes an increase of $3

million in funding for substance prevention and teen pregnancy prevention.

Gov Rowland said it is time for able-bodied, employable recipients of

municipal welfare to go to work. He proposes that the welfare benefits

available to such people be more strictly limited.

"We have made major chnages in the state welfare program, now it is time for

the city welfare recipients to go to work also," he said.

"We finally put a time limit on welfare so that it will again be a short path

to a better life, not a permanant lifestyle," he said.

Gov Rowland proposes adding $40 million to the budget of the state Department

of Children and Families to be able to better protect children considered to

be at-risk of harm.

In 1992, the average time that prisoners served in Connecticut prisons and

jails was only 14 percent of their sentences, the governor said. Today, the

average time served is 47 percent of the sentences and increasing, he said.

"No criminal justice system is worth its salt if it fails to recognize the

rights of victimes, he said.

"We need to focus more attention on the victims who are left to cope with the

tragic aftermath of violent crime," he said. Gov Rowland said he will support

a constitutional amendement to protect victims' rights.