Connecticut government shuts down

HARTFORD, Conn. — A budget deadlock Tuesday forced Connecticut to join Maine and become the second state in two days to shut down non-essential services, idling 7,000 state workers and leaving unhappy Fourth of July campers shut out of parks.

Besides Maine and Connecticut, at least seven other states — California, Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and North Carolina — were without a spending plan Tuesday, two days into a new fiscal year.

Connecticut Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr., elected as an independent in November, ordered a shutdown shortly after 5 a.m.

“We do not have a budget,” he said. “It’s up to me to harbor the resources of the state as best I can.”

Welfare checks were mailed a day early in anticipation of the shutdown. But 40 state agencies, boards and commissions were ordered shut as part of a phased-in plan that would idle 20,000 of the state’s 48,000 workers by Wednesday if no budget was passed.

At the Connecticut Capitol, weary legislators worked around the clock to pass a budget.