Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell vetoed a bill passed by the state legislature that would have allowed Connecticut to set its own accounting standards to balance the budget.
“I have serious concerns about the potential fiscal impact this bill may have on the state,” said Rell in a statement. “The plain language of this bill would allow the comptroller to issue financial statements in whatever standards she prescribed.”
She admitted that the current comptroller, Nancy Wyman, did not intend to deviate from GAAP for reporting purposes, but nothing in the bill would stop a future comptroller from doing so.
The bill had caused grave concern to the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, which feared that other state legislatures would abandon GAAP. Connecticut has been struggling to balance its budget and now issues two reports, one that shows a deficit under GAAP and another that shows a surplus under its own standards. Closing the gap would cost an estimated $150 million per year over 14 years.
