Governor Rell Celebrates Passage of Sweeping, Bipartisan Jobs Bill

Press Release

Governor M. Jodi Rell today celebrated passage of sweeping, bipartisan jobs legislation that offers incentives for employers, supports small business and emerging industries, provides resources for tuition and training, helps manufacturers find efficiencies and includes accountability measures to safeguard state taxpayer dollars.

The bill was the product of cooperative efforts Governor Rell began in the first leadership meeting of the legislative session. House Bill 5435, An Act Concerning the Recommendations of the Majority Leaders Job Growth Roundtable, passed 140-4 in the House and unanimously in the Senate.

"This may very well be the most important bill -- other than the budget -- we passed all year," Governor Rell said. "All of us agreed there were really only two priorities this year -- the budget and jobs. We passed a budget, on time, for the first time in four years. And today we celebrate the centerpiece of a number of jobs bills that address Issue No. 1 for the people of our state: keeping and growing jobs.

"In that very first leadership meeting, I asked each leader to make this bill their priority and to join me in making it a truly bipartisan, cooperative effort," the Governor said. "The less we worried about who got the credit -- and the more we focused on what made it into the bill -- the more we were likely to accomplish. This legislation has elements I offered in my budget speech, elements from the Majority Leaders' Roundtable and elements proposed by legislative Republicans. More importantly, the people of our state will benefit in ways large and small -- which is exactly how it should be."

Highlights of the bill:

* Provides up to $500,000 in loans and lines of credit for small businesses and nonprofits
* Sales tax exemption for machinery, supplies and fuel used in renewable energy industries
* Tax credits and a cap of $200 on insurance premiums for small businesses that create new jobs and/or hire workers with disabilities
* Loan reimbursement and training grants for education and careers in green technology, life sciences and health information technology
* Establishes a Community-Technical College advisory board to assess training needs of unemployed residents
* Authorizes up to $150,000 in pre-seed financing and technical services to businesses developing innovative concepts;
* Provides 25 percent personal income tax credits for up to $100,000 in angel investments in bioscience, photonics, information technology and green technology businesses
* Authorizes $1.3 million in bonds for mortgage crisis job training
* Establishes waste reduction task force to study reducing or eliminating duplicative procedures
* Expands DECD Commissioner's duties in technical assistance for exporting, manufacturing and cluster-based initiatives
* Establishes DECD pilot program helping Connecticut-based small manufacturers implement green technologies and become more efficient
* Requires OFA to evaluate resources needed to include job impact analyses in fiscal notes and report those findings to the Office of Legislative Management by December 1, 2010

"I think the best way to describe many of the provisions in this bill is this: They build on our strengths," Governor Rell said. "Here is one example: A provision of the bill expands on the work already being done by our community and technical colleges to help people get back to work. These local colleges have been nothing less than heroic during this economic downturn, providing training -- and in some cases, retraining -- to people in need of skills to find new and productive careers.

"That education has been available to them in the community, at relatively low cost, and has been geared specifically to the needs of local employers because our community and technical colleges communicate directly with those employers to find out their needs," the Governor said. "These are the kind of focused investments we need to be making to get people back to work, and they are the kinds of cost-effective solutions we want so we get the most for our limited dollars."

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