Lamont tries to ease fears over federal aid cutbacks
John Moritz / CT Mirror
Gov. Ned Lamont (left), Emergency Services Commissioner Ronnell Higgins, Emergency Management division leader Brenda Bergeron (2nd from right) and Energy and Enviromental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes at Thursday's press conference.
Gov. Ned Lamont tried to ease worries over eroding federal aid Thursday, assuring residents that while Connecticut must brace for reduced help from Washington, the state is better prepared to manage the crisis than most others.
Speaking at a late afternoon press conference, Lamont also said he isn’t ready to commit funds that Connecticut has used in recent years to shrink its considerable pension debt to mitigate the pain of federal cuts. But he also was careful not to rule anything out.
“I don’t want to overstate what’s going on, because every day it changes,” Lamont said, adding that the press conference would be the first of a series of semi-regular televised updates on federal funding, like those he offered five years ago when the coronavirus pandemic struck Connecticut. “We’re not going to relive those days, but there is another period we’re going through right now with a lot of unpredictability and uncertainty.”
The largest program on the federal chopping block, Medicaid, remains unresolved. But Congress has set a goal of achieving more than $880 billion in federal budget cuts, a benchmark that can’t be achieved without deeply slashing a Medicaid program that is sending more than $6 billion to Connecticut this year.
The Lamont administration has outlined various scenarios under which Connecticut could lose anywhere from $186 million to closer to $1 billion annually, but the governor said he hopes the state will have greater clarity on this before the regular General Assembly session closes on June 4.
Lamont and three of his department heads did outline more than $300 million in federal grants for Connecticut that already either have been canceled, had new conditions placed upon them, or are at risk of being recalled based upon recent statements from the Trump administration.
Nearly two-thirds of those funds are related to public health or addiction treatment programs. Attorney General William Tong has challenged those reductions, which Trump imposed without congressional approval. A federal court has temporarily halted those cuts, but Lamont said that Connecticut must prepare for the likelihood that support in this area will be reduced, through one legal mechanism or another.
“I can’t stick my head in the sand,” he said. “We’re going to be prepared.”
Roughly $100 million in at-risk funding involves environmental, security and emergency management programs, and Lamont said Washington seems to have forgotten a decade of “incredible environmental hits.”
The Trump administration recently warned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency soon would be ending its Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities [BRIC] grant program, which covers 75% of local environmental projects.
Katie Dykes, the commissioner of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, said Connecticut has about $90 million in BRIC grants at risk, involving projects to safeguard a coastal substation in Bridgeport and the New Haven train station.
Another $9 million in federal emergency management and homeland security grants appear stalled. All communities in Connecticut benefit from these dollars, which support training exercises and specialized services such as bomb squads and search-and-rescue teams, said Brenda Bergeron, head of the state Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.
Ronnell A. Higgins, the commissioner of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, said state officials already have begun discussions with their municipal counterparts about how to finance emergency services going forward.
“We’re going to have to think differently now,” Higgins added.
Not all of Lamont’s assessment of the federal funding was gloomy. Trump has expressed support for continued healthy investments in the nation’s transportation infrastructure, and Lamont said, “I feel pretty confident that [the] significant federal resources that are going in alongside our Connecticut dollars to rebuild our roads and bridges and rail … will continue. At least we don’t see as much jeopardy there, which is particularly good news.”
Connecticut received $1.4 billion in federal construction funding last fiscal year, pairing it with $875 million in state borrowing to pay for transportation projects.
Lamont not ready to reshape CT’s ‘fiscal guardrails’ yet
Lamont added that while states’ relationships with the federal government are clearly evolving, Connecticut is better prepared than most others to shoulder additional burdens — though it cannot replace all federal aid that likely will be eventually cut.
Connecticut holds a record-setting $4.1 billion in its emergency budget reserve, but “I really need that rainy day fund to protect against the recession,” said Lamont, who added he fears the next economic downturn will be “severe.”
Despite a decision by Trump to pause some of the tariffs imposed in recent months, those trade duties have heightened many economists’ fears of rising inflation and a softening stock market.
But the governor isn’t ready to take a step his fellow Democrats in the state House and Senate majorities did this week.
Connecticut established a series of budget caps in 2017 that have generated unprecedented surpluses — an average of $1.8 billion per year, or about 8% of the General Fund. Critics charge the program has been too aggressive, leeching needed dollars away from core programs, weakening education, health and child care, social services and municipal aid.
Democratic leaders said one of the chief caps driving those surpluses should be modified so Connecticut could tap some of that savings to offset the most painful federal cuts. The governor says it’s too soon to commit those dollars, suggesting lawmakers here wait until the end of the legislative session to see what else develops in Washington.
“I’m not there yet,” said Lamont.
A fiscal moderate, Lamont has been wary throughout his tenure to use state dollars to compensate for reduced federal funding.
But while Lamont acknowledged those concerns Wednesday, the governor added that “circumstances seem to be changing, don’t they.”
House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, who fought two years ago to boost Connecticut’s budget reserve to its $4.1 billion level, said Thursday that “this is not a decision we have to make today.”
Ritter said Democratic lawmakers have “a lot of angst and concerns” but don’t disagree with the governor that a pool of emergency state funds to offset federal cuts doesn’t have to be created immediately. “No one disagrees with the timing on this.”
CT Mirror staff writer John Moritz contributed to this report.
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