HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut lawmakers held a hearing today on a $291 million funding proposal to help for The Jackson Laboratory build a genetic research lab on the grounds of the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington.

The bill calls for a $192 million forgivable loan and $99 million in research funding from the state. The project is supposed to create 320 jobs over 10 years and a total of 661 over 20 years, in additional to construction and spin-off employment.

But in today’s hearing, minority Republicans were less than enthusiastic about the deal that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy reached with Maine-based Jackson Lab to build the $1.1 billion facility.

State Rep. Sean Williams, R-Watertown, the ranking House Republican on the legislature’s Finance Revenue and Bonding Committee, said the deal seemed a bit one-sided.

“I don’t say that disrespectfully, I say that from an analytical point of view that it seems one-sided,” said Williams, who questioned whether the Maine-based, independent research lab had as much “skin in the game” as the state in terms of a financial investment.

Michael Hyde, Jackson’s chief development officer, pointed out that the lab would out-spend the state of Connecticut over the next several years by 3-to-1 as the project goes forward. Overall, Hyde said the lab was making a substantial investment of money, as well as its international reputation, in Connecticut.

“What The Jackson Laboratory offers the state of Connecticut is the full force and credibility of our global reputation,” Hyde said. “We’re going to put that on the line, with you. We’re going to say to the world, ‘We believe that Connecticut is the place where biomedical history is going to be made. We have no intention of leaving . . .We’re proposing to come here and build an institution that will help this state to move forward.”

Tthe bill will be put to a vote during an Oct. 26 special session of the General Assembly.


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