Gov. Ned Lamont challenged legislators in his new $28.7 billion budget to reform how Connecticut funds “earmarks,” smaller projects for lawmakers’ home districts that often lack the vetting given to larger initiatives.
Millions of dollars would be removed from omnibus “other expenses” accounts across departmental budgets, in which they’re largely invisible. They would be transferred to specific “grants” line items. More importantly, the state agencies responsible for implementing legislators’ pet projects would have to post financial and other details of each project on open data portal websites run by the governor’s budget office, the state comptroller’s office, or both.
The proposals stem from reports about how Sen. Douglas McCrory, D-Hartford, helped direct more than $15 million in earmarks over the past five years to the Blue Hills Civic Association. They also come shortly after a state audit identified “potential fraud” tied to those earmarks, and after Lamont called for McCrory to be removed from his leadership roles.
“The public interest is usually best served when procurement of services is done through a transparent, competitive process,” the Lamont administration wrote in the introduction to the governor’s latest budget, while recognizing that legislators, traditionally, have sought to award funds directly for very specific projects or programs close to home.
“Let’s pull them out. Let’s make sure that we can see them, and we know where they are,” Lamont’s budget director, Joshua Wojcik, said while briefing the media on the governor’s plan.
The audit showed that McCrory, co-chairman of the Education Committee and deputy president pro tempore of the Senate, directed how the Blue Hills Civic Association spent the majority of that $15 million. It also found he allegedly instructed the nonprofit’s leaders not to tell the state about $300,000 that had been stolen through a fraudulent wire transfer in 2024.
The findings included in the audit are just the latest problem confronting McCrory. The longtime state lawmaker is also being investigated by the FBI and a federal grand jury.
McCrory, who has declined to be interviewed by The Connecticut Mirror, wrote in a statement posted to his legislative website that “Although I engaged in no wrongdoing I was mentioned in the audit because I was involved in advocating at the legislature for resources for organizations within my district, including BHСА, and some of the organizations that received funds were criticized in the audit.”
McCrory added that he agrees with the Department of Economic and Community Development that “stronger oversight is needed to ensure that public funds are managed responsibly and effectively.”
Lamont’s new budget also challenged legislators to tighten their belts when it comes to pet projects.
The governor’s proposed budget revisions would trim funding for all earmarks — excluding those connected to housing, juvenile justice programs or federally qualified health centers — by 20%, or $15.7 million.
The preliminary budget adopted last June for the 2026-27 fiscal year included $78.6 million for earmarks outside those three areas.
Wojcik said housing, health clinics and juvenile justice “are priority areas for both the legislator and the governor, and so it didn’t make sense to reduce investments.”
Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, predicted legislators would welcome some of the governor’s plan, but not all.
“We certainly are in favor of transparency,” Looney said, “but trimming the earmarks is a different question.”