June 11th is being targets as the day the Connecticut legislature will open a special session, officially to extend the conveyance tax and possibly to tackle ethics reform.

Democratic leaders have set June 11 for a special legislative session to extend a real estate conveyance tax that’s worth about $40 million a year to towns and cities.

Speaker of the House James Amann, D-Milford, and Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn, told reporters yesterday afternoon that the scope of the one-day session could be broadened to include ethics reform legislation that died when the General Assembly’s regular session ended May 7.

“If there’s an agreement, we’ll do it,” Amann said, pointing to a scheduled meeting next week between state Rep. Christopher Caruso, D-Bridgeport, and state Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford, co-chairmen of the Government Administration and Elections Committee.

There’s less of a chance that the special session would include legislation to provide more early reading funding that cities have requested, but Williams and Amann did not rule out the possibility of a compromise on the issue with Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell.

“Unless there’s an agreement between the governor and all of us, if you open up the door, a lot more are going to rush in,” Amann said, noting that his members of his caucus would like to bring up as many as 20 other issues.

The two leaders said that they do not intend to reopen the $18.4 billion budget set to take effect on July 1 after the governor and Democrats agreed to make no changes to the second year of the biennial budget approved last year.

The article in the Advocate also reported that Governor Rell stated that there is a state hiring freeze in every department except public health and safety.

source: Advocate, Conveyance tax special session set for June 11, By Ken Dixon, 05/24/2008