Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

Federal environmental officials have warned Connecticut they will begin to de-certify a crucial pollution abatement program the day after the General Assembly session ends in May -- unless state policy-makers craft a solution first.

At issue is a more than $80 million backlog in applications for assistance through Connecticut's Underground Storage Tank Petroleum Cleanup Program -- and hundreds of gasoline stations that fuel industry representatives say are at risk of going out of business.

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February 1, 2012

Malloy commits $300 million to state public housing

By Mark Pazniokas

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy will make a 10-year, $330 million commitment to affordable housing in the budget he is proposing next week, with much of the money devoted to the rehabilitation of long-neglected, state-financed public housing.

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February 1, 2012

Health reform choice: For those just above Medicaid limit, private insurance or a state-run plan?

By Arielle Levin Becker

Advocates for low-income residents want the state to create a new health program for poor adults who don't get Medicaid coverage, and they say lawmakers must commit to doing so this year to make it work as part of federal health reform.

"We should take this opportunity and we need to take it now," said Jane McNichol, executive director of the Legal Assistance Resource Center of Connecticut.

January 31, 2012

Auditors seek access to confidential tax records when reviewing whistleblower complaints

By Keith M. Phaneuf

The legislature's top watchdog office is seeking access to confidential state tax information to assist in processing whistleblower complaints filed by state employees.

Auditors John G. Geragosian and Robert M. Ward also used their first annual report to lawmakers on Tuesday to recommend overhauling how agencies report lost funds, tightening competitive bidding rules and closing a loophole that allows retirees to collect full pensions and state-funded salaries.

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January 31, 2012

Anti-poverty advocates look to promote -- and protect -- new tax credit for working poor

By Keith M. Phaneuf

As tax season arrives, advocates for the Connecticut's new income tax credit for working poor families are trying to keep commercial tax preparers -- and revenue-hungry state officials -- from getting their hands on it.

The Connecticut Association for Human Services, one of the private, nonprofit community's leading anti-poverty organizations, is coordinating an outreach campaign to steer needy households to free tax preparation services also run by nonprofits.

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January 31, 2012

After years of flat funding, nonprofits could face cuts

By Arielle Levin Becker and Keith M. Phaneuf

As the state closes its group homes and restricts admissions to public residential programs, it is financially squeezing the very nonprofit providers who are expected to take up the slack. Nonprofit reimbursements have been flat for four years and aren't scheduled to increase next fiscal year.

January 30, 2012

Retiring foe of gaming addiction warns against online gambling

By Keith M. Phaneuf

"The more money you spend on gambling, the more revenue you make, the likelihood is greater you are going to have more problems," said Marvin Steinberg, who steps down this week as head of the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling. He called the relationship between an increase in gambling and an increase in gambling problems inescapable.

January 30, 2012

Malloy gets final approval for Jackson Lab investment

By Keith M. Phaneuf

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy secured Connecticut's investment in a major genetic research initiative Monday -- but not before one more partisan debate.

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January 27, 2012

Nonpartisan analysts: Malloy was way off in projected savings from pension givebacks

By Keith M. Phaneuf

Pension concessions granted by unionized state employees last year will provide just over one-third of the $4.8 billion savings projected by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's administration, nonpartisan legislative fiscal analysts reported Friday.

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January 27, 2012

Malloy discusses more consolidations, possible job growth, from Davos

By Keith M. Phaneuf

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced plans Friday for a second round of agency consolidations, including combining oversight for the University of Connecticut, its health center and the chief medical examiner's office. He will ask the legislature to merge 15 departments and agencies into seven.

January 26, 2012

State pays high price for incarcerating mentally ill

By Keith M. Phaneuf

Spurred by a new study showing the high costs of treating the mentally ill in prison, the Malloy administration is searching for ways to treat nonviolent offenders outside the prison system.

It costs Connecticut nearly double to both incarcerate and treat an offender with serious mental illnesses, compared with the price of treatment alone, according to a new academic study that analyzed social service and correction trends in 2006 and 2007.

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January 25, 2012

State budget plunges into the red with promised savings in question

By Keith M. Phaneuf

Despite repeated assurances from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy that savings from union concessions and other cost-cutting measures would be achieved, nonpartisan legislative analysts reported a nearly $145 million state budget deficit Wednesday evening.

Malloy's budget director Benjamin Barnes said late Wednesday that his office would review the analysts' forecast, but, "I have confidence in the projections released" by the administration.

January 25, 2012

Demand for home care workers soaring, but will there be enough takers?

By Arielle Levin Becker

Despite the down economy, the need for home care workers is booming. But experts worry about finding enough people to take jobs that often come with low pay, no benefits, and a history of being devalued.

January 24, 2012

Malloy orders $79 million in emergency budget cuts

By Mark Pazniokas and Keith M. Phaneuf

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy used his emergency fiscal authority Tuesday to cut nearly $79 million, an unwelcome development for a governor trying to put a fiscal crisis behind him. But he cast the action as a relatively modest correction after a year of tumult.

January 23, 2012

Malloy unveils plan to reverse two decades of damage to employees' pension fund

By Keith M. Phaneuf and Mark Pazniokas

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy unveiled plans Monday to reverse nearly two decades of budget gimmicks that leave the state facing huge payments over the next two decades to sustain Connecticut's grossly underfunded state employee pension fund.

But while Malloy touted potential long-range savings, they come with a high price that must be paid up front: an extra $3 billion in pension payments between next fiscal year and 2023. After 2024, the contribution would drop annually, and by 2031 Connecticut would be $5.8 billion ahead.

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January 20, 2012

Malloy reports microscopic surplus, emergency budget cuts likely next week

By Keith M. Phaneuf

The state's budget isn't drowning, but its fiscal nose is above water by such a small fraction -- 1/134th of 1 percent -- it's almost impossible to see. The monthly report from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's administration, released late Friday afternoon, projects a $1.4 million surplus, with the $88 million cushion originally built into the budget all but vanished.

January 20, 2012

Wall Street credit agency downgrades Connecticut's bond rating

By Keith M. Phaneuf

One of the leading Wall Street credit rating agencies downgraded Connecticut's rating Friday, citing a heavily loaded state credit card, huge debts in pension and retiree health care programs, and a depleted emergency reserve.

The decision by Moody's Investors Service to lower state government's bond rating from Aa3 to Aa2, opens the door for Connecticut to pay higher interest charges on future capital projects, even though its rating remains relatively high.

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January 18, 2012

Malloy launches express job-growth program with South Windsor company

By Keith M. Phaneuf

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy used one of the new job creation tools Wednesday that state lawmakers authorized during last fall's special session, tapping a South Windsor company to launch the new Small Business Express Program. Oxford Performance Materials is expected to be the first of dozens of firms to receive assistance within 30 days of appealing to the administration for help.

January 17, 2012

Budget hovers on brink of deficit as Malloy's fiscal cushion erodes quickly

By Keith M. Phaneuf

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's vaunted fiscal cushion has begun to erode quickly, and an underperforming state income tax is the chief culprit. Fiscal analysts for the executive and legislative branches agreed on a consensus revenue report late Tuesday that pushes the current budget to the brink of a deficit -- or possibly over it.

January 17, 2012

CCM wants education reform now, even if dollars follow later

By Keith M. Phaneuf

Connecticut's cities and towns are hoping lawmakers will spend the next few months deciding to increase local education grants -- even if communities don't start to see the money for a few more years. The wish list released Tuesday by the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities also asks for a reform of binding arbitration and prevailing wage laws and a constitutional ban on unfunded mandates.

January 17, 2012

To solve DSS delays, more staff or better technology?

By Arielle Levin Becker

DSS Commissioner Roderick Bremby likes to illustrate the balance of human and technological solutions with a story: If he told people to take down a tree and handed them a pocket knife, they'd have trouble. He could send in 10 more people with pocket knives. Or he could get them a chainsaw. The problem is, what happens before the chainsaws are available?

January 13, 2012

Malloy to push to ease restrictions on alcohol sales and pricing

By Mark Pazniokas and Keith M. Phaneuf

With an announcement timed to make the Sunday newspapers, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy intends to propose a series of changes Saturday in the state's restrictive alcohol laws, including a repeal of minimum pricing and the ban on Sunday sales.

Administration officials say Malloy will explain his proposal in Enfield, one of the border towns where package-store owners have broken with the rest of what is a mom-and-pop industry and asked to compete with longer hours of operation and flexible pricing.

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January 12, 2012

Pension fund gets a boost from concessions -- and rebounding stock market

By Keith M. Phaneuf

A new report shows that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy got the budget savings he was hoping for from state employee pension concessions -- albeit with an assist from a rebounding Wall Street. A preliminary analysis released Thursday shows that Connecticut should contribute $926 million to the fund this fiscal year -- $13 million less than the level Malloy and legislators built into the current budget.

January 11, 2012

Malloy backs performance standards, and penalties, for utilities

By Keith M. Phaneuf

Writing new utility standards into law, complete with penalties for poor performance, topped a list of initiatives Gov. Dannel P. Malloy unveiled Wednesday to enhance Connecticut's readiness for future weather-related crises. "We can't know exactly what emergency is coming next, but we can learn from past experience and improve," Malloy said. "The initiatives we're announcing today are the first step toward that goal."

January 11, 2012

Gas stations at risk as state faces deadline to salvage anti-pollution program

By Keith M. Phaneuf

State government is facing a deadline this spring to resolve an $80 million backlog in a fuel cleanup program involving leaking underground tanks -- or risk hundreds of gasoline stations going out of business. The backlogs stretch back nearly a decade.

January 6, 2012

State's cash flow problem sparks partisan feud

By Keith M. Phaneuf

While House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero, R-Norwalk, tried to link the cash flow problem to an unstable state budget, Office of Policy and Management Secretary Benjamin Barnes countered that it stems from decades of fiscal gimmicks that preceded the current administration.

January 5, 2012

Proposed cap on gas tax could suffer from poor timing

By Keith M. Phaneuf

With gas prices climbing again, a Meriden lawmaker and service stations want to put the brakes on a volatile state fuel tax that accelerates prices hikes even further. But with taxpayers still recovering from the $1.5 billion increase in all state taxes last year, any plan to revisit taxes in the coming legislative session could be doomed.

January 4, 2012

Watchdogs urge lawmakers to limit Executive Branch oversight

By Keith M. Phaneuf

The divisions of state government's new and loosely unified watchdog agency found a common voice this week as they opposed recommendations that would increase executive branch oversight of their missions. Leaders of the right-to-know, clean elections and ethics agencies, along with the child advocate, urged lawmakers in a new report not to enhance the powers of the new executive administrator of the Office of Governmental Accountability.

December 31, 2011

Despite challenges, state can influence 2012 economic outcome

By Keith M. Phaneuf

"There's never been a time in my 30 years when there have been so many wild cards on the table," economist Don Klepper-Smith said this week. "I can't recall a time when we've had so many risks out there, both upside risks and downside risks."

December 29, 2011

Prison population headed for an 11-year-low in 2012

By Keith M. Phaneuf

After dropping by nearly 4 percent in 2011, Connecticut's prison population is on pace to dip below 17,000 inmates in early January after hitting an 11-year-low earlier this month, according to the state's Criminal Justice Policy and Planning Division.

And former state Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, who has led the division for the past year, said Thursday that the inmate ranks should decline at a similar pace in 2012 as Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's administration looks to close a third prison in two years.

December 22, 2011

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Your credit card bill is high? The state owes $19.5 billion

By Keith M. Phaneuf

Holiday shoppers aren't the only ones taking a wary look at their credit card balances these days. State government recently undertook its own annual debt review, looking from several perspectives, but coming to the same conclusion each time: Connecticut remains one of the most indebted states in the nation.