By Angela Varney
Gov. Malloy and Connecticut legislative leaders are scrambling to compromise on the budget deal this week to meet the Oct. 1 deadline. The battle to agree on a budget deal has been raging since the the fiscal year began on July 1 while the potential loss of more than $1 billion in local aid on the line.
“For me–and for any of us–we wanted a budget by July 1,” Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, said Sunday morning. “October 1 is certainly another deadline. A bipartisan budget is the goal. Whether it’s possible or not is anybody’s guess.”
Without coming to an agreement on the budget deal, dozens of the state’s wealthier towns will receive an executive order from the governor, causing them to miss out on the first four scheduled payments for local schools.
However, sources said Sunday that if there isn’t a compromise made on the budget deal isn’t cleared through the House and Senate, or signed by Gov. Malloy, by Oct. 1, a special one-day session will be held this week to “assure that $70 million in federal Medicaid reimbursement funding flows to state hospitals,” according to the CT Post.