Your Voice is Needed!
On February 3rd, the Governor released his FY17 Mid-term Budget Adjustments to deal with the continuing deficits facing the state.
The proposed adjustments included a 5.75% cut across the board for most state agencies. It also proposed a new ‘block grant’ structure to the budget, whereby the previous line item allocations would be lumped into one single ‘Agency Operations’ account.
This new structure would make it difficult to know exactly how particular programs we care so much about would be affected, but we do know that the Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, and CT Agricultural Experiment Station have already faced significant cuts and have limited staff to do their respective agencies’ work. These further cuts would be very difficult to absorb for staff in these agencies that are already stretched thin.
Here’s How You Can Help
On Wednesday, February 10th, the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee is holding a public hearing at 6:30 pm at the Legislative Office Building (Room 2C). You can either submit testimony or testify in person (details below) or get in touch with your legislator directly and share your concern for the impact on the programs at Department of Ag, DEEP, CT Agricultural Experiment Station, and Council on Environmental Quality.
To email testimony: Submit testimony in Word or Pdf format to APPtestimony@cga.ct.gov with “Conservation and Development Testimony, 2/10/16” in the subject line. For testimony to be included in the public hearing, it must be received by 2/10/16 at 2 pm.
To Attend or Testify in Person: The hearing will by tomorrow, February 10th at 6:30 pm in the Legislative Office Building (300 Capitol Ave, Hartford) in Room 2C. The speaking order for the hearing is determined by a lottery system and speakers are limited to 3 minutes. Details can be found here.
Contact your legislator: Send your legislator a copy of your testimony or share your concerns with them in an email (and please cc WLA on the email). To find your legislator, click here.
If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch with WLA Project Director Lisa Bassani at lbassani@farmland.org.
