Hartford — Faced with a midnight deadline, the state Senate raced Wednesday to adopt a state budget and enact other legislation before the end of the session.

The House of Representatives, coming off a marathon, 20-hour session Tuesday into Wednesday, sent the budget to the Senate and then kept going on other bills.

“There are a lot of bleary-eyed people walking around this building today,” Sen. Paul Formica, R-East Lyme, said.

The House adopted the budget about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday when Democratic leaders had wrangled the votes necessary to pass a $40 billion biennial budget. The bill, which required the support of 72 lawmakers for passage, was approved 73-70 after about five hours of debate.

Of the 11 local members of the House of Representatives, seven voted against the budget and four voted in favor. Democrats Ernest Hewett, D-New London; Ed Jutila, D-East Lyme; Diana Urban, D-North Stonington; and Kevin Ryan, D-Montville, voted yea.

Joined by one Democrat from the region, Rep. Emmett Riley, D-Norwich, Republicans in the delegation all voted nay: Reps. Aundre Bumgardner, R-Groton; Kathleen McCarty, R-Waterford; Devin Carney, R-Old Saybrook; John Scott, R-Groton; Mike France, R-Ledyard; and Doug Dubitsky, R-Chaplin.

Riley said while there were "a lot of very good things in the budget" he ultimately had to vote no because of "a lot of new taxes I just didn't agree with." 

Riley said he feels "we have somewhat turned a corner in the economy," so he didn't feel it was the time to "place unnecessary taxes on businesses and individuals." 

A tax he most disagrees with, he said, is the data processing tax. Computer Science Corp. is in Norwich and is one of the city's biggest taxpayers. He said the budget doubles the company's taxes in less than one year. He added that the tax will also affect banks and other corporations that use data processing systems. 

Riley highlighted his biggest accomplishment from the legislative session as passing legislation that instructs the Connecticut Sentencing Commission to study the Sex Offender Registration Program "to make sure that families are safe in the communities they live in." 

Jutila said of the budget, “It was a very tough call and a stressful 24 hours. 

“It has some good elements. The transportation improvements, and the good things that could mean here in southeastern Connecticut, was a big plus for me. Transportation has long been one of my top priorities and I have backed the governor’s call for investment in transportation. The money coming out of the sales tax, devoted to those transportation improvements, was one of the big reasons I was willing to back the budget.”

He also said he liked the new revenues from the sales tax that will go back to towns for property tax relief.

“There was also some not-so-good stuff, with the taxes, that made it a tough call. It wasn’t the budget I would have put together, but you don’t get that option, you get to vote on what is presented.”  

He also said he felt fiscally moderate Democrats, which is how he considers himself, were given a voice in helping control the spending side of the budget. “We had some impact,” he said. 

Before walking into the House chamber for the last session of the 2015 legislative session, McCarty explained why she voted no.

"Because it had many, many tax increases, and we know that we just can't sustain any new taxes, and this really hurt the middle class," an admittedly tired McCarty said. "It hurt our business sector ... the unitary tax (on Connecticut corporations) and the tax imposed on technology is really going to hurt some of our bigger corporations."

The unitary tax led some major corporations in the state — including Aetna, General Electric and Travelers — to issue statements against the Democratic budget plan that came out over the weekend. Democratic leaders made some changes before the vote.

Hewett said the budget that passed in the House was the result of long negotiations and compromises.

“It wasn’t everything we wanted, but for the municipalities we got some tax relief and more money in PILOT (Payments in Lieu of Taxes) funding. That’s what I’ve been fighting for all these years, and we finally got that,” he said. “I’m not pleased about everything in the budget, but I was pleased enough to put up a green light.”

Bumgardner, who said he was able to grab a two-hour nap before returning to the Capitol, called the tax and spending package “a very ugly budget that I think will really set Connecticut back.”

“I am disappointed about the budget,” he said. “But the one part that I think a lot of people can agree on is the elimination of taxes on military (retirement pay). That was one of the more rewarding parts of the budget.”

Bumgardner, whose district includes the Naval Submarine Base, said the budget calls for a 100 percent exemption from the state income tax for federally taxable military retirement pay. Currently the exemption is at 50 percent for retired members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and Army and Air National Guard.

The Senate began at about 5:30 p.m. to take up the tax and spending package, which it must pass before the legislative session ends by law at midnight. If a budget is not approved by the Senate before the General Assembly adjourns for the summer, legislators would be called back to Hartford for a special session before July 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

Formica said early in the Senate's session Wednesday that he was not sure the budget passed earlier in the day by the House would "provide for the needs of everybody in the state."

"Republicans on both the House and Senate sides put out a balanced line-item budget that was under the spending cap, didn't call for tax increases, that funded transportation, and yet those ideas weren't allowed to be brought to the negotiating table," Formica, a freshman senator, said. "I think what you're seeing is the result of not having as many minds with input (involved) to come out with a budget the best we can."

Minutes before heading into session, Osten said she planned on supporting the budget as amended and passed by the House earlier.

For the first time, Osten said outside of the Senate chambers, "(this) is a real talk about property tax reform, and that has always intrigued me since we started talking about this budget."

The towns that are in Osten's 19th District "will now have the ability to lower their property taxes, which is one of the most regressive taxes around."

"That's something I consider to provide real relief to the middle class residents in eastern Connecticut," she added.

Additionally, she said, should the budget pass, car taxes for many people, particularly in the Norwich area, will be "dramatically decreased" in the second year of the two-year budget. In the Norwich area, car owners could a see a decrease in taxes by 8 mills, according to Osten.

"You know, it's got some difficult choices in it, and I recognize that. I made a commitment that we would look at property tax reform and this is property tax reform,” she said.

c.young@theday.com

Twitter: @ColinAYoung

j.bergman@theday.com

Twitter: JuliaSBergman