They may weigh a thousand pounds or more, rarely fly more than a few feet over a gully or a fence rail, and they never sing, but the horses of the Second Company Governor’s Horse Guard were effective canaries in the coalmine of Connecticut’s budget crisis this past week. Their fate appeared to hang in the balance as Governor Dannel P. Malloy and the rest of state government waited to hear the results of a second vote by 45,000 unionized state employees on a package of contract concessions designed to save the state $1.6 billion over two years along with the jobs of thousands of state workers. Two of those at-risk state employees work at the Newtown horse guard unit. The guard’s military overseers ordered the closure of the local horse guard facility and the relocation or retirement of the horses there.

The order mobilized horse guard supporters here in Newtown, and inspired a coordinated, sustained, and bipartisan campaign by state and local officials to forestall the closure. The fate of the horses and the 200-year-old Second Company was not decided, however, until shortly after the governor heard that the state unions had accepted the concessions deal. For now, the herd of “canaries” at Fairfield Hills survives, and so do thousands of jobs that otherwise would have been lost.

The next item on the governor’s agenda, now that some state jobs have been saved, is more and better jobs for the rest of us. To that end, Gov Malloy has begun to lay the groundwork of a “nonpartisan” special session of the Legislature devoted to jobs. Unlike in the nation’s capital, where Democrats and Republicans declare each other’s initiatives “dead on arrival” even before they have bothered to read them, both the majority and minorities in Connecticut’s House and Senate seem to be having an adult response to this idea.

The Republican Senate Minority Leader John McKinney said the Democratic governor’s efforts to show the business community that the state’s elected leaders are united when it comes to job creation is a concept worthy of support across the political spectrum. “I think there’s a lot of common ground,” Sen McKinney told reporters last week. He suggested that if such a session comes to pass, lawmakers should avoid refighting old battles, including legislation mandating paid sick days, which Republicans desperately want to repeal.

The paid sick days legislation is just the latest in a series of signals the state has been sending out for years that are perceived as business-unfriendly. And it has taken a toll. Connecticut has consistently ranked among the worst states for job creation over the past 20 years. So just having Republicans and Democrats sitting down together in good faith to find ways to encourage economic and job growth though policies that work with, and not against, the business community is a step in the right direction.

What we have all come to realize this year, once again, is that every state job comes with a financial cost: wages, benefits, and pensions. What our elected leaders seem to be realizing, once again, is that every private job comes with a dividend: sales and income tax revenue, reduced unemployment and Medicaid expenditures, and overall economic growth. If they somehow can convene to act on these realizations without backsliding into partisan political bickering, it will indeed be rare and hopeful day. The horses might even sing.