State may wait even longer for reforms

can’t be done nine months from now when we go back into session,” Fasano said. “There’s always another session. We have to focus our energy on protecting the public, making sure they don’t panic, and trying to make sure that businesses remain open.”

For years, legislators have been battling over sports betting and whether to build a casino in Bridgeport with various factions seeking different outcomes. The Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes say they have the exclusive right to sports betting in the state, but they have been unable to reach an agreement with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy or Gov. Ned Lamont.

“If the gaming bill doesn’t pass this session, nothing is really going to change,” Fasano said. “Pick your bill out there.”

Since they already passed a two-year budget last year, lawmakers do not need to make wholesale changes to the state’s finances. But ever since two-year budgets started more than two decades ago, lawmakers have returned in the second year of the biennium to make adjustments to the fiscal plan. Lamont has made a series of recommendations, but no legislative committees have voted yet on his budget proposal.

In election years, the General Assembly operates under a short, three-month schedule that ends this year on May 6 at midnight. That deadline cannot be extended under the state constitution, but lawmakers can always hold special sessions in the summer, if necessary. But legislators said the lack of a special session on electronic highway tolls