Lawmakers met on Monday to craft the final details of a bipartisan budget deal.
In caucus meetings this afternoon, Democratic and Republican state senators are learning more about the tentative framework for a potential budget deal, after 115 days without one.
"We’re definitely cautiously optimistic we haven’t seen the final product but the thing we feel good about is that both sides really seem to be really talking in earnest and have been for the last couple of weeks," Joe DeLong, the executive director for Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, said.
Before there could be a budget vote in both chamber sometime this week, leaders need to finalize the numbers on the major issue of municipal funding.
The longer the state goes without a budget, the more dire consequences could be for families in the cities and towns across Connecticut, DeLong said.
"Imagine a kindergarten child who has gone way to school for the first time away from their family they’re acclimated they’re comfortable they have a wonderful teacher and they find out in a few weeks your teacher is being laid off and you’re now going into a classroom with 40 kids and starting in an environment all over again," DeLong said.
Meanwhile, environmental groups are speaking out against part of the tentative deal that diverts millions of dollars from ratepayer-funded clean energy programs into the general fund.
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"Instead of the money going to where it supposed to, they’re going to raid it to plug a budget gap but that money creates further investments and creates further jobs and savings for those families that are putting that money into these funds," Claire Coleman, with the Connecticut Fund for the Environment, said.
If there is a budget vote this week, the question is whether or not there will be enough support to make it veto proof.
Governor Dannel Malloy already vetoed a GOP budget that passed that he called "illegal".
