Offering a fiscal framework for the first time, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Tuesday that he will offer a budget next month that does not go beyond the current $19 billion state budget and will reject any budget that borrows money for operating expenses.
Malloy settled on the framework over the weekend and announced it Tuesday to his commissioners at the state Capitol.
He will also avoid an early retirement plans, which have been common in recent years as a method of obtaining short-term savings by allowing the highest-salaried and most veteran employees to leave state service. But those plans have also been criticized for increasing long-term costs because state employees receive an incentive to retire and then can receive increased pensions.
In the fourth part of his framework, Malloy said that the state will fund its pensions obligations in full on an annual basis.
"I have never hidden my desire to see a fair amount of consolidation in state government,'' Malloy said. "I think this first budget that we present, as well as some of the ideas that are behind it, will make it clear that it is our intention to consolidate.''
On the day that Malloy announced his framework, Republican legislators released their "common sense'' agenda that calls for reducing the salaries of all legislators over the next two years by 10 percent and increase the co-pays for health care for both legislators and their staff members. They also called for freezing the salaries of state employees for two years and then cut the salaries of all commissioners and deputy commissioners by 10 percent over the biennium.
In addition, the Republicans called for reducing 43 state agencies into 11.
Malloy said he had not yet seen the Republican proposals and declined to comment in detail.
When asked by a veteran Waterbury newspaper reporter if he would take a symbolic pay cut from his $150,000 salary, Malloy said he had not made any decisions on that yet.