New Haven Mayor John DeStefano has seen a lot of proposed state budgets during his nearly 20-year tenure. So is this year’s budget being proposed Gov. Dannel P. Malloy the worst he’s ever seen?

“Let me be very clear, I have never had a budget that increases taxes in New Haven by 4-and-a-half mills from the state. That’s true,” he told reporters at the state Capitol complex Tuesday.

DeStefano and Jim Finley, executive director of the Connecticut Council of Municipalities, met with House Speaker J. Brendan Sharkey Tuesdasy to ask him not to back Malloy’s proposal that cuts their operating budgets.

So did DeStefano and Finley get any promises from Sharkey?

“We didn’t get into specifics,” Finley said.

Sharkey told small town leaders in January that as the legislature works to close its $1 billion deficit for the coming year, it is unlikely that municipalities will be able to be held harmless.

City and town leaders from around the state have come out against the governor’s budget on several occasions.

The duo is set to meet with Senate President Donald E. William Jr. later today.

Jacqueline was CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter, and an original member of the CT Mirror staff, joining shortly before our January 2010 launch. Her awards include the best-of-show Theodore A. Driscoll Investigative Award from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists in 2019 for reporting on inadequate inmate health care, first-place for investigative reporting from the New England Newspaper and Press Association in 2020 for reporting on housing segregation, and two first-place awards from the National Education Writers Association in 2012. She was selected for a prestigious, year-long Propublica Local Reporting Network grant in 2019, exploring a range of affordable and low-income housing issues. Before joining CT Mirror, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.

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