When Gov. Ned Lamont announced the state was going on a debt diet, he wasn’t kidding.
For his first five months in office, Lamont held only one meeting of the State Bond Commission. Next week will mark the second.
In a 41-page agenda released Wednesday, Lamont announced that the state will be releasing funding for a wide variety of items, including clean water projects, local bridge repairs, minority business assistance programs, and affordable housing.
“I am committed to ensuring that critical investments are prioritized and made efficiently and effectively with state taxpayer dollars while living within our means,” Lamont said in a statement. “Programs funded on this agenda represent a significant investment in economic development, transportation, housing, and environmental issues – all of which contribute to making our state a great place to live, learn, work, and grow.”
But House Republican leader Themis Klarides of Derby complained Wednesday that Lamont had not included money that he had promised during the 2018 election campaign in the Naugatuck Valley.
“Yet another campaign promise has been broken,” Klarides said of the bond agenda. “There is no mention of the Valley Regional Fire Training School construction funding. Governor Lamont campaigned aggressively in the Valley during the 2018 election cycle, targeting volunteer fire fighters and their long-ignored basic needs for training. This is not simply falling short of a campaign promise. This is a perfect example of a politician serving up big promises and delivering nothing.”
Before the bond commission agenda was released, Lamont sent a letter to Klarides that the training project in Beacon Falls would not immediately be funded.
“Unfortunately, our fiscal challenges, which you have consistently acknowledged, require us to reexamine our prioritization of bond funds,” Lamont wrote. “Additionally, proposals such as Prioritize Progress would further put projects such as this one at risk. To this end, I have tasked the Office of Policy and Management with a complete review and prioritization of all eligible projects – including the Valley Fire School. At this time we are unable to support this new project.”
The projects at next Wednesday’s bond meeting include $4 million for various waterfront improvements that include replacing the rotted and damaged wood at the Chester-Hadlyme and Rocky Hill-Glastonbury ferries, which often suffer from flooding.
The state will also spend nearly $1.5 million to upgrade offices of the state Department of Motor Vehicles, including replacing the roofs and upgrading heating systems at the Hamden and Winsted branch offices.
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In his first meeting that lasted less than 17 minutes, Lamont oversaw an unusually thin agenda of 15 items that did not include local projects of past years like gazebos or splash pads that had been criticized by some Republicans as unnecessary.
The 15 items at the first meeting in April totaled $115 million. By comparison, the state borrowed an average of $583 million over the first three months of the year under Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, according to the governor’s office.
The state-mandated bonding cap is $2 billion for the 2019 calendar year but Lamont has pledged to borrow far less than that. He told business leaders in January that he would authorize less than $1 billion in borrowing this year, a 39 percent reduction from the eight-year annual average of $1.59 billion under Malloy.
