Democrat’s Slush Fund
In 2017, Connecticut put fiscal guardrails in place to stop Hartford from treating surplus dollars as a political piggy bank. Those bipartisan rules were supposed to send extra revenue to the Budget Reserve Fund and to pay down pension debt. Instead, the Democrat Supermajority opened a new discretionary account for the governor to tap at will.
| That is the definition of a slush fund: surplus pulled off-budget, spent outside the guardrails, and justified as an “emergency” where no actual emergency exists. |
Democrats transferred $330.8 million from the Budget Reserve Fund into a new “Federal Cuts Response Fund,” then added another $50 million, bringing the pot to about $381 million. The money sits with the Office of Policy and Management. Reported uses include UConn and UConn Health research backfill, dairy subsidies, extra DSS positions, homelessness grants, and Planned Parenthood reimbursement—items which never appeared in a regular budget debate under the cap.
That is the definition of a slush fund: surplus pulled off-budget, spent outside the ordinary guardrails, and justified as an “emergency” where no actual emergency exists.
More Exceptions, Same Session
The same session piled on more exceptions: extra school and municipal aid, and a childcare endowment built with hundreds of millions in surplus that would otherwise have gone to long-term liabilities. Comptroller Sean Scanlon himself has said the caps have diverted billions toward pensions. Republicans argued those dollars should stay in the reserve or pay down debt. Democrats spent them.
Who Voted With the Majority
Greenwich’s Democratic representatives, Steve Meskers (150th) and Hector Arzeno (151st), sit in the majority that made this possible. Senator Ryan Fazio and Representative Tina Courpas did what they said they would do: they opposed blowing the caps for election-year payouts. Fazio has said plainly that the governor and the Democratic legislature have compromised the fiscal rules too far.
The Democrat “seat at the table” that votes for the slush fund is not a check. It’s time to break the Supermajority. Connecticut needs your Republican vote across the board in November.
