The legislature’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee is expected to approve selling future revenues tied to monthly electric bills for pennies on the dollar to provide $1.3 billion to help balance next fiscal year’s budget, sources said this afternoon.

The committee, which began meeting 10 minutes ago, also will not back an alternative securitization plan, which involved the sale of lottery revenues, including a new Keno game.

Currently, portions of most consumers’ monthly bills go to reimburse the state’s two major utility companies – United Illuminating and Northeast Utilities – for costs they incurred 12 years ago as part of a sweeping industry deregulation. NU is scheduled to be fully repaid by year’s end, and UI by 2013.

As these obligations to utility companies end, most of the charges related to them could remain on consumers’ bills, and the revenue could be sold.

Keith has spent most of his 31 years as a reporter specializing in state government finances, analyzing such topics as income tax equity, waste in government and the complex funding systems behind Connecticut’s transportation and social services networks. He has been the state finances reporter at CT Mirror since it launched in 2010. Prior to joining CT Mirror Keith was State Capitol bureau chief for The Journal Inquirer of Manchester, a reporter for the Day of New London, and a former contributing writer to The New York Times. Keith is a graduate of and a former journalism instructor at the University of Connecticut.

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