Can the Connecticut General Assembly change its own budget process by passing a new law instead of following the procedure already in the statutes?

Plain-English summary

The 2024 General Assembly passed House Bill 5523 (eventually Public Act 24-81), and along the way it bypassed two procedural steps spelled out in Connecticut General Statutes § 2-35. The Republican leaders in both chambers asked Attorney General William Tong whether that was lawful: whether HB 5523 counted as a "budget adjustment" under the constitution and statutes, and whether it should have triggered a fresh round of revenue estimates from the Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee.

The AG's answer in both cases was yes, the process was lawful. The reasoning rests on three black-letter propositions:

1. Article Third, § 18 of the Connecticut constitution requires a balanced budget. The 2023 General Assembly enacted a balanced biennial budget (Public Act 23-204) covering July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2025. HB 5523 did not change that.
2. The bond lock in Conn. Gen. Stat. § 3-20(bb) commits the General Assembly to certain fiscal guardrails. HB 5523 was consistent with the bond lock; the bond lock does not commit the legislature to § 2-35's particular procedures for expenditure adjustments and revenue estimates.
3. The General Assembly controls both the substance and the process of the state budget. A prior legislature cannot tie a future legislature's hands. When a supermajority of both chambers passed HB 5523, it superseded any conflicting provisions in § 2-35, including the procedural ones the question identified.

Connecticut's Supreme Court reached the same conclusion in a closely parallel case, Patterson v. Dempsey, 152 Conn. 431 (1965): a special act inconsistent with § 2-35 created an implied exception to the earlier provision.

What this means for you

If you are a state legislator or legislative staff member

This opinion confirms that procedural statutes governing the budget process are not a constraint on a future supermajority. If a budget vehicle deviates from § 2-35's process (for example, by not originating in the Appropriations Committee, or by skipping a Finance Committee revenue revision), the deviation is itself a lawmaking choice that supersedes the prior procedure for that particular act. If you want a procedural rule that future legislatures cannot brush aside by ordinary statute, that rule has to live in the constitution, in the bond lock, or in another binding contractual or constitutional commitment.

If you are a budget analyst or government accountability researcher

The opinion is narrow on the substance. The AG did not opine on whether HB 5523 made good fiscal policy, whether the deviation from § 2-35 was prudent, or whether revenue estimates should have been refreshed as a matter of best practice. The conclusion is purely about authority. Critics arguing that the bill bypassed a transparency-promoting process are not foreclosed; they just cannot say the bypass was illegal.

If you work in bond counsel, public finance, or as an investor in Connecticut debt

The AG specifically found HB 5523 consistent with the bond lock under § 3-20(bb). If you are doing diligence on Connecticut bonds, this opinion is reassurance that the 2024 budget process did not breach the fiscal guardrails baked into the State's bond covenants. The bond lock continues to commit the General Assembly to the substantive guardrails it covers; § 2-35 procedures are not part of those covenants.

If you are a municipal finance officer or local official depending on state aid

The opinion does not change your appropriations or aid amounts. It addresses only the procedural authority for HB 5523. If you were uncertain whether the funding decisions in PA 24-81 might be challenged on procedural grounds, this opinion makes that challenge unlikely to succeed.

Common questions

Q: What is § 2-35 and why did its bypass attract attention?
A: Conn. Gen. Stat. § 2-35(a) directs the Appropriations Committee, in each even-numbered year, to originate and report at least one bill that adjusts expenditures for the next fiscal year. § 2-35(b)(3) directs the Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee to revise revenue estimates under specified circumstances. The Republican leaders argued HB 5523 did the work of an "adjustment" without following these committee-originated procedural steps.

Q: Does this mean the General Assembly can ignore any statutory procedure when passing a budget?
A: Effectively yes, by ordinary majority lawmaking, as long as the new law itself is constitutional and consistent with Connecticut's bond lock. A prior legislature cannot bind a later one through ordinary statute. The AG drew the line at constitutional rules and bond-lock obligations.

Q: What is the "bond lock"?
A: A statutory commitment under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 3-20(bb) by which Connecticut's Treasurer promises certain bond purchasers that the General Assembly will honor a set of fiscal guardrails. The bond lock binds the legislature contractually to bondholders, which is why it is not just another statute the legislature can override at will.

Q: What does Article Third, § 18 of the Connecticut constitution require?
A: A balanced budget. Expenditures may not exceed revenues. The AG concluded that the 2023 biennial budget was balanced and HB 5523 did not change that.

Q: What did Patterson v. Dempsey decide?
A: The Connecticut Supreme Court held that when the General Assembly passes a special act inconsistent with § 2-35's budgeting process, it creates an implied exception to the earlier provisions. One legislature cannot effectively control the enactment of legislation by a subsequent legislature. The AG treats Patterson as essentially controlling here.

Q: Could the legislature lock in procedural budget rules in a way that would survive?
A: The opinion suggests three durable mechanisms: a constitutional amendment, a bond-lock-style contractual commitment to bondholders, or vested rights protected by the constitution. Anything else that lives in an ordinary statute can be displaced by a later ordinary statute.

Background and statutory framework

The Connecticut budget process is structured around several layered obligations. The constitution sets the substantive ceiling: revenues must cover expenditures (art. third, § 18). The bond lock under § 3-20(bb) layers on contractual fiscal guardrails that bondholders rely on. Below those, Connecticut General Statutes § 2-35 sets out the procedural choreography of how the Appropriations Committee and the Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee draft and refresh budget bills and revenue estimates.

The opinion's central move is to slot § 2-35 into the bottom layer (ordinary statute) rather than the top two layers (constitutional and bond-locked). Once placed there, the Patterson v. Dempsey rule applies: a later supermajority can pass an inconsistent law, and the inconsistency is the law. The AG cites two related cases for the broader proposition that "one legislature cannot control the exercise of the powers of a succeeding legislature": Caldwell v. Meskill, 164 Conn. 299, 305 (1973), and Preveslin v. Derby & Ansonia Dev. Co., 112 Conn. 129, 140 (1930).

The Patterson decision involved a special act inconsistent with § 2-35's procedural rules. The Supreme Court there did not strike down the special act; it read the special act as creating an implicit exception to § 2-35. The same reading applies here. HB 5523 may have skipped procedural steps, but the act itself is the legislative choice, and the legislative choice prevails over earlier procedural statute.

Citations and references

Constitutional and statutory provisions:
- Conn. Const. art. III, § 18 (balanced budget requirement)
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 2-35(a) (Appropriations Committee even-year adjustment bill)
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 2-35(b)(3) (Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee revenue revisions)
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 3-20(bb) (bond lock)

Acts:
- 2023 Conn. Pub. Act No. 23-204 (biennial budget for July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2025)
- 2024 Conn. Pub. Act No. 24-81 (HB 5523)

Cases:
- Patterson v. Dempsey, 152 Conn. 431, 439, 444 (1965) (one legislature cannot control a subsequent one; special act creates implicit exception to § 2-35)
- Caldwell v. Meskill, 164 Conn. 299, 305 (1973)
- Preveslin v. Derby & Ansonia Dev. Co., 112 Conn. 129, 140 (1930)

External reference:
- Rute Pinho, Office of Legislative Research, State Fiscal Controls (Dec. 5, 2023), https://www.cga.ct.gov/2023/rpt/pdf/2023-R-0299.pdf

Source

• Landing page: https://portal.ct.gov/AG/Opinions
• Original PDF: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/ag/opinions/2024/2024_2_ago_formal_opinion_on_budgeting_process.pdf?rev=a128241cab6d4c138a2d90f2b2e30f81

Original opinion text

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
CONNECTICUT

william tong
attorney general

September 24, 2024
By Email
The Honorable Vincent Candelora
House Republican Leader
Legislative Office Building, Room 4200
300 Capitol Avenue
Hartford, Connecticut 06106

The Honorable Stephen Harding
Senate Republican Leader
Legislative Office Building, Room 3400
300 Capitol Avenue
Hartford, Connecticut 06106

Re: Request for Formal Opinion

Dear Representative Candelora and Senator Harding:

You sought my formal legal opinion on the following two questions about the 2024 budgeting process:

• Whether 2024's House Bill 5523, ultimately enacted as Public Act 24-81, "constitutes a budget adjustment under our constitution and statutes." Letter from House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora & Senate Republican Leader Stephen Harding to Attorney General William Tong (May 7, 2024). Under General Statutes § 2-35(a), "[i]n each even-numbered year," the General Assembly's Appropriations Committee "shall originate and report at least one bill which adjusts expenditures for the ensuing fiscal year in such manner as it deems appropriate." You suggest that the General Assembly failed to comply with that provision in 2024, since, you imply, House Bill 5523 de facto changed (or "adjusted") the prior year's allocations but was not originated and reported by the Appropriations Committee; and

• Whether HB 5523 and a companion bill "prompt adoption of new revenue estimates as required pursuant to" § 2-35(b)(3), which directs the General Assembly's Finance, Revenue, and Bonding Committee to "meet and revise" revenue estimates under specified circumstances. Letter from House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora & Senate Republican Leader Stephen Harding to Attorney General William Tong (May 20, 2024).

I conclude that the General Assembly's 2024 budget process adhered to Connecticut's Constitution; the State's "bond lock" commitments; and all other applicable law. Neither of the procedural provisions that you reference from § 2-35 is constitutionally mandated; neither is required by Connecticut's bond covenants; and both are subject to change by legislative vote. When a supermajority of the General Assembly passed House Bill 5523, it superseded and supplanted any prior conflicting provisions, including those. The General Assembly exercised its clear authority to change its own past procedure.

My conclusion flows from three straightforward propositions of black-letter law.

First: Article Third, § 18 of our Constitution requires the General Assembly to enact a balanced budget by ensuring that expenditures do not exceed revenues. In 2023, the General Assembly complied with that requirement, passing a balanced budget for the biennium beginning July 1, 2023 and ending June 30, 2025. 2023 Conn. Pub. Act. No. 23-204. House Bill 5523 did nothing to change that compliance.

Second: under General Statutes § 3-20(bb), and the so-called "bond lock," Connecticut's Treasurer must promise some lenders that the General Assembly will adhere to a set of "fiscal guardrails." See Rute Pinho, Office of Legislative Research, State Fiscal Controls (Dec. 5, 2023), available at https://www.cga.ct.gov/2023/rpt/pdf/2023-R-0299.pdf (summarizing the obligations in Connecticut's bond lock.) House Bill 5523 is consistent with the bond lock, which does not commit the General Assembly to § 2-35's procedures for expenditure adjustments and revenue estimates.

Third: the General Assembly, subject to the Governor's veto, is empowered to decide both the process and substance of Connecticut's budget. Your letters express concern that the General Assembly altered the "normal process" of estimating revenue and adjusting the budget in even-numbered years. But the budget process, "normal" or not, can be changed by the General Assembly. The General Assembly defines that process through its lawmaking. So even assuming that House Bill 5523 deviated from pre-2024 statutory law, the General Assembly would be entirely within its lawful authority to change it. It may have made new law. But making and changing laws is the General Assembly's prerogative under our constitutional system, and a prior legislature's budgeting process cannot bind this legislature. House Bill 5523 superseded and supplanted any conflicting prior legislation.

Our Supreme Court has already resolved this issue, affirming the lawfulness of the General Assembly's process in a nearly identical context. In Patterson v. Dempsey, the Court held that the General Assembly, in passing a special act inconsistent with § 2-35's budgeting process, carved out an implicit exception to the earlier provisions. 152 Conn. 431, 439 (1965) ("To hold otherwise would be to hold that one General Assembly could effectively control the enactment of legislation by a subsequent General Assembly. This obviously is not true, except where vested rights, protected by the constitution, have accrued under the earlier act."); see Caldwell v. Meskill, 164 Conn. 299, 305 (1973); Preveslin v. Derby & Ansonia Dev. Co., 112 Conn. 129, 140 (1930) ("[O]ne legislature cannot control the exercise of the powers of a succeeding legislature.").

A supermajority of both chambers was well within its authority to enact a law that superseded and supplanted the questioned provisions of § 2-35.

Very truly yours,

WILLIAM TONG