House Republicans Reps. Rutigliano, Devlin and McGorty Call for No-Tax Increase Budget with Revised Plan

Preserves Municipal Aid, Flat Funding for Schools, Reduces Corporate Surcharge

HARTFORD – Hearing the call from constituents to make Connecticut affordable, Trumbull State Reps. David Rutigliano (R-123), Laura Devlin (R-134) and Ben McGorty (R-122) along with the State House Republicans today issued their revised no-tax increase budget for 2018-19 that eliminates the projected $5 billion budget deficit, increases school funding for all towns, reduces the corporate surcharge and mitigates municipal aid losses by reallocating funds.

Rep. Rutigliano said, “I am proud to stand with the House Republicans and put forward a ‘No Tax Increase’ budget. We can’t continue down the rabbit hole and tax more and more to fund our bloated state government. We need to heed the warning signs before more residents leave Connecticut.”

State Rep. Laura Devlin, who sits on the Finance, Revenue and Bonding committee said, “We have heard loud and clear from our constituents and I have pledged not to raise taxes on them. In light of our state revenues dropping significantly due to a 45% drop in income tax collections from the top 100 Connecticut taxpayers, we need to stop this continued over-taxation of our residents.”

“Everyone can see at this point that raising taxes and increasing spending have not solved our economic troubles- they have worsened them,” said Rep. McGorty. “Now the state has been downgraded again by two credit agencies within the last week. We can turn the state around, and our plan does that without raising taxes, and making some tough choices.”

The proposed budget provides for an increase to every town in school funding over current levels. Trumbull legislators rely on significant state employee union concessions and reduced state spending to balance the budget. Their proposal also includes a wage freeze for state employees, but no layoffs.

According to the Trumbull House Delegations, Republicans will join Democrats and Gov. Malloy at the negotiating table Wednesday to come up with a final budget plan that can pass both the House and Senate.

On Monday, the governor’s revised budget proposal included hundreds of millions in additional cuts in local aid that Republicans rejected. The Trumbull legislators also turned down a proposal to require towns, like Trumbull to pay $400 million in teacher pensions.

Republicans did accept Governor Malloy’s plan to eliminate GAAP funding to save $57 million a year and eliminate scheduled raises and publicly financed campaigns, and redirected the money to help balance the budget.