(Updated 3:11 p.m.) Republican lawmakers unveiled their own deficit mitigation package Friday morning, which restores an $84 million cut in municipal aid, eliminates funding for the Citizens' Election Program, cuts state agency spending by $258.3 million, and restores the sales tax reduction.

The "alternative" deficit mitigation plan offered by Republicans Friday is in response to Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell's plan, which cuts $337 million in spending from the $18.64 billion 2010 budget.

In what was sometimes a heated discussion, municipal and state officials tried to tackle the issue of unfunded state mandates during a two-hour meeting Thursday.

But after municipal leaders spoke about all the cuts they already had made and brainstormed ways the state could offer them some relief, an argument over which policies would actually pass the legislature broke out between New Haven Mayor John DeStefano and Vernon Mayor Jason McCoy.

Chief elected officials from 10 cities and towns will meet for the first time Thursday morning to talk about how to cut $84 million in municipal aid.

A month after predicting the state will end the year $624 million in the red, state Comptroller Nancy Wyman adjusted her numbers downward Tuesday.

In her latest letter to Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell, Wyman lowered the deficit by about $75 million to $549 million. The number is still higher than the $337 million deficit Rell hopes the legislature will mitigate on Dec. 15.

Both numbers exclude the half-percent reduction in the sales tax, which all parties have decided won't take place on Jan. 1.

(Updated 4:25 p.m.) At the request of Gov. M. Jodi Rell, the Correction Department recommended closing Webster Correctional Institution in Cheshire.

The level two, minimum security prison currently houses 220 inmates and closing it could save the state $3.4 million on an annual basis, according to Acting Correction Department Commissioner Brian Murphy.

Rell is considering the recommendation, but has not made a final decision.

Sidetracked by the state budget crisis earlier this year, the now 17-member Commission on Enhancing Agency Outcomes regrouped Monday to brainstorm ways to streamline state government.

The commission created in February has only met a handful of times, but are ready to get down to business to make state government "smarter and more efficient."

Before leaving to spend Thanksgiving in Colorado Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced Wednesday afternoon that she would be calling the General Assembly back Dec. 15 to vote on her deficit mitigation plan and fix the state's fledgling campaign finance law.

In August a federal judge decided that Connecticut's 2005 public campaign finance law was unconstitutional because it treated third-party and petitioning candidates differently than candidates from the two major parties. And while the legislature has talked about making changes many are worried those changes won't come soon enough to save the Citizens Election Program.

(Updated 8:24 p.m.) Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell proposed cutting $337 million from the $18.64 billion 2010 budget passed by the legislature just three months ago.

Rell's deficit mitigation plan released Tuesday afternoon assumes that the planned sales tax reduction from 6 to 5.5 percent won't take place on Jan. 1 and cuts $84 million in funding for cities and towns.

House Speaker Chris Donovan, D-Meriden, and U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy will brief lawmakers and advocates 10:15 a.m., Monday on the federal health care reform legislation. The briefing will be held in Room 1B of the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.

Starting on Jan. 1 foreclosed properties will now be subject to state and municipal conveyance taxes, according to language approved in the state budget passed three months ago.

It's a policy change which will hit a vulnerable population and it has lawmakers on both sides of the aisle concerned.

"It was not a policy decision," Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, said Tuesday. "My guess is people were looking at various places for revenue."