As legislators returned to their hometowns without approving a state budget Thursday, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and legislators said they made progress during the 2017 session despite the unfinished business.

The largest remaining element is the two-year, $40 billion budget that legislators hope to negotiate before the end of the fiscal year on June 30. The enactment of the budget is the most important task of the legislature, and all sides agreed that they currently lack enough consensus to reach an agreement.

But Malloy looked back Thursday to opening day of the in early January, and said there was "real progress that has been accomplished'' over the past five months.

Those include pension restructuring in which the state avoided a huge "cliff'' with a potential balloon payment as large as $6 billion in a single year in 2032. That change marked the first time on a major policy issue this year that Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman broke a party-line tie to seal the deal in the evenly divided Senate.

Malloy also cited bail reform and the passage of a constitutional "lock box'' to ensure that transportation money cannot be diverted for other purposes - as has been done in the past. But Republicans blasted the idea as having a shiny lock on the front and holes in the back. As such, House Republican leader Themis Klarides of Derby said Thursday that the general public should reject the constitutional lock box at the ballot box in November 2018.

"The sources of revenue that go in can be manipulated,'' Klarides said. "That's not being truthful.''

But Malloy, who is not seeking reelection, is continuing to push his transportation agenda.

"A thriving economy demands a modern transportation network. Our cities need such a network to survive themselves. Protecting transportation dollars is an important and long overdue step in the right direction.''

On the high-profile issue of casinos, Malloy declined to say directly whether he would sign the so-called "sweetener'' bill that passed both chambers as part of a package to allow the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes to construct a $300 million East Windsor casino to compete with a nearly $1 billion full-scale casino under construction in Springfield.

Klarides supported the so-called "sweetener'' bill after plans for a Hartford boutique casino and slot machines in the off-track betting parlors in three cities were dropped.

"There were so many iterations on that table,'' Klarides said. "By the end of the day, the change in the OTB number and this other change were very reasonable.''

Those changes included increasing the number of off-track betting outlets to 24, up from the current 18, and establishing a regulatory framework for sports betting if that is legalized nationally.

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Despite Budget Stalemate, Malloy Touts Progress in Legislature - Hartford Courant