Constitution of Connecticut (2025 publisher edition) — Amendment XXVIII

Publisher edition notice: The publisher identifies this compilation as revised to January 1, 2025. It preserves the annotated original 1965 text and all ratified amendments, alongside the Revisors' unofficial convenience version incorporating extant amendments. The latter does not supersede the original Constitution and amendments; later changes have not been independently verified.

Amendment XXVIII Ratified amendment and publisher annotations.

ARTICLE XXVIII.*
*Adopted November 25, 1992.
Implementation of amendment entrusted to legislature; separation of powers cited; case is nonjusticiable. 236 C. 1.
Cited. Id.
Plaintiff’s challenge to budget act is not ripe for adjudication due to ongoing, incomplete budget process; because
General Assembly has sole authority to define terms by law under Subsec. (b), court has no jurisdiction to consider
plaintiff’s proposed definitions of those terms; claim presents a nonjusticiable political question. 52 CS 118.
(Limit on state expenditures. Maximum authorized increase; “emergency or
extraordinary circumstances”; definitions to be defined by general assembly.
Surplus.)
Article third of the Constitution is amended by adding section 18 as follows:
Sec. 18. (a) The amount of general budget expenditures authorized for any fiscal
year shall not exceed the estimated amount of revenue for such fiscal year.
(b) The general assembly shall not authorize an increase in general budget expen-
ditures for any fiscal year above the amount of general budget expenditures author-
ized for the previous fiscal year by a percentage which exceeds the greater of the
percentage increase in personal income or the percentage increase in inflation, unless
the governor declares an emergency or the existence of extraordinary circumstances
and at least three-fifths of the members of each house of the general assembly vote to
exceed such limit for the purposes of such emergency or extraordinary circumstances.
The general assembly shall by law define “increase in personal income”, “increase
in inflation” and “general budget expenditures” for the purposes of this section and
may amend such definitions, from time to time, provided general budget expenditures
shall not include expenditures for the payment of bonds, notes or other evidences of

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Art. XXIX AMENDMENTS TO THE 213
CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT
indebtedness. The enactment or amendment of such definitions shall require the vote
of three-fifths of the members of each house of the general assembly.
(c) Any unappropriated surplus shall be used to fund a budget reserve fund or for
the reduction of bonded indebtedness; or for any other purpose authorized by at least
three-fifths of the members of each house of the general assembly.