Governor Ned Lamont joins us in studio on the heels of his State of the State address to talk about funding for higher education, keeping budget guardrails in place and the overflowing transportation fund.
As we heard the governor say in his State of the State earlier this week, Connecticut's in good shape.
We're in the black, the Rainy Day Fund is full, the transportation fund is overflowing. We've paid down pension debt in record amounts. But are the state's purse strings too tight?
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have mentioned areas where they would like to see some funding be funneled, like education or maybe other tax cuts, depending on who you talk to.
Governor Ned Lamont gave his State of the State on Wednesday. He gives a little more information as we look to the short session moving ahead.
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Mike Hydeck: Let's start with education. That's one of the things people are talking about more and more lately, specifically, higher education. Is more funding for UConn and regional universities on the table in the readjustment or is it completely off the table?
Gov. Ned Lamont: Well, we have a balanced budget. We passed it a year ago on an almost unanimous basis. We're talking about the second year of the budget. We've had increases for a community college system as well as UConn, the CSU system. I think right now that's what we've got. And I think we can live within that. K through 12 education, we have increases just like we do for the universities. And we have about $400 million in federal money they still can invest as well.
Mike Hydeck: So they say we have a shortfall. CSCU said we raised tuitions, they offered buyouts for long-term employees. They're trying to do what they want to do on their side of the budget to try to make their balance sheet look more appealing. They want about $47 million or so more. No?
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Gov. Ned Lamont: We have a tight budget. It's not, if you want $47 million more for CSU, I gotta take $47 million from somewhere else. They've got the biggest grant we've ever had there, and they have a few fewer students, that's what's impacting. You're going to have to think and reform a little bit about how you're doing business.
Mike Hydeck: Now as far as fewer students, are we, and I've asked this of many people on all sides of the issue, are our community colleges doing a good job when it comes to training for all of these 80,000 jobs we have open in our state? Whether it's welders, teachers, nurses, you can pick the discipline.
Gov. Ned Lamont: Look, they're doing great. Terrence Cheng is really working it hard, Kelli Valleries on our workforce team. We've got to make sure our community college is not always oriented towards a two-year degree, but getting people a job. Then maybe you come back in the evenings and continue your education. We've got to rethink a little bit how we're doing it.
Mike Hydeck: Alright, so let's talk transportation. The fund is overflowing. Add to that, we have that once in a generation federal investment as far as the infrastructure plan. But your critics in the construction industry say, 'look, we've promised a billion dollars in bonding the last few years, that hasn't happened. We need to green light projects faster or we're going to lose this federal money.' That's what they're saying. What do you say?
Gov. Ned Lamont: I'm saying thanks to Garrett Eucalitto, our Commissioner of Transportation, we're punching way above our weight class. We're getting more of the competitive grants, than you know, other states. We're putting that money to work. Just drive around the state, you see the number of PLAs and jobs, so we're putting our folks to work, making an enormous difference. I like to think because of this infrastructure bill, you're not going to recognize the state in five to 10 years. We're going to be able to speed up rail dramatically, get you to and from work a lot easier.
Mike Hydeck: When are those rail bridges going to be under construction, the new ones? They're a billion dollars apiece, it feels like, right? Or something like that.
Gov. Ned Lamont: Each one of those bridges, they could be 100 years old. You have to slow down to go over it, then you speed up again. You're gonna see a lot of those under construction. Right now, the walk bridge in Norwalk is already under construction, as we get going right now. Gold Star Bridge, that's auto of the New London area, that's under construction.
Mike Hydeck: I talked to Gary Eucalitto, the Commissioner of Transportation before, he said getting engineers on the job is the hard part. You need people to engineer these projects and be a part of each one of these projects. Is that still an issue for us?
Gov. Ned Lamont: Yeah, what a great job, be a transportation engineer. We need you, guaranteed work right there. Garrett's doing a good job getting those balanced out. Because we are design ready. We get that proposal down in front of the feds, we show that we got the transportation monies to put up our 20%. We're at the front of the line. We're winning those grants.
Mike Hydeck: So affordable housing is a major issue. You and I talked about this recently, too. Waterbury. We had the mayor of Waterbury on last week. Waterbury alone, there are upwards of more than two dozen empty carcasses of factories. They're a reminder of what Connecticut used to be when it was manufacturing brass, and all the other metals and copper. Is there something we can do to take some of those factories and turn them into the housing we so desperately need? I know there's a brownfield situation here. Where are we on that?
Gov. Ned Lamont: Accelerating the work on the brownfields. Waterbury, you show us where you want the housing to go. Is it in this old factory here? We'll get you at the front of the line, make sure that's remediated, take that old factory, make sure it's development ready. We've done a lot of that under the previous mayor, Neil O'Leary, we're going to keep it going with Paul.
Mike Hydeck: Is federal money available to help with that, because those projects remediation when you're talking about PCBs and the other contaminants in these old factory sites, that's what takes so long. Is federal money available for that?
Gov. Ned Lamont: Yeah, there's some federal money. It's mainly what we're doing out of our own bonding, Connecticut state bonding, but it's really important. Look, it's easy to build in some other places, because all you have to do is go out into the desert, put some water and sewer in. I gotta clean up this land. You were probably building something toxic there for 100 years. That's what remediation means.
Mike Hydeck: So in the State of the State address, last question here, you mentioned the need to address climate change. We're investing in wind with a huge cost overrun at the pier, by the way. Another component is modernizing the grid. Are we doing enough investing in the grid when critics say Massachusetts is going above and beyond with grid, electric charging stations. Can we do more there? What's the plan moving forward?
Gov. Ned Lamont: Yes, we can do more. The good news is our electric usage has been pretty flat over the last 20 years. But I think that's going to start picking up. We have a lot of federal money to upgrade or strengthen or harden the grid. Make sure it's better suited for two-way, for example, solar. We're doubling down on wind, as you pointed out. That's going to be activated in about 18 months. We're making progress there, but we still have a way to go.
