Keep Current on the State’s Budget with CTMirror.org at http://ctmirror.org/money
March 12, 2012
Internet brokers who refer business to hotels and
motels no longer would be spared from Connecticut's
15 percent occupancy tax under a new bill raised by a legislative panel.
And while Gov. Dannel
P. Malloy's revenue commissioner and several legislators on the Finance,
Revenue and Bonding Committee said the measure is about tax fairness, opponents
warned it could be a thorn in Connecticut's
tourism industry.
March 8, 2012
Democrats on the Appropriations Committee lined up
Thursday behind Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's proposal to place more state expenditures outside Connecticut's
constitutional spending cap, while Republicans criticized the changes as
evidence of deteriorating state finances.
March 7, 2012
Comptroller Kevin P. Lembo
left a big question mark in the state's new annual financial report, reflecting
an overdue assessment of billions of dollars in promised long-term savings tied
to union health care concessions ratified last summer.
March 2, 2012
State Treasurer Denise L. Nappier
and House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, have resumed their fight over whether the state has
a cash flow problem indicative of financial distress -- or if politicians are
clashing over semantics.
Nappier says
she is willing to meet with legislators to warn them about
"misleading" statements from some lawmakers, while Cafero is eager to publicly question her about a suggestion
the GOP is "ignorant of the budget process."
Read
more
March 1, 2012
For the first time, Comptroller Kevin P. Lembo and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy
don't see eye-to-eye when it comes to state finances.
Lembo reported his
first deficit of the fiscal year, projecting a $20.7 million shortfall in the
general fund. The governor's budget office says the state will finish with a
$35.9 million surplus.
Read more
February 28, 2012
The battle to legalize Sunday liquor sales and
loosen pricing controls evolved Tuesday into conflicting visions of prosperity
and despair.
On one side sees the proposed changes as bolstering
the economy and driving down prices. The other predicts that increased
competition could cost more than 8,000 small business jobs.
Read
more
February 27, 2012
The state has been working to get people out of
nursing homes, but officials are hoping that at least one facility will be open
to taking a new group of residents -- parolees and patients from state
institutions.
Like many states, Connecticut has a growing population of
older prisoners whose care, officials say, could be provided less expensively
outside prison. Michael Lawlor, the state's
undersecretary for criminal justice, said, "Unless we try and deal with it
now, it'll be unmanageable, unaffordable 10 years from now."
Read
more
February 24, 2012
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's
$864 million investment in the UConn Health
Center netted more than
praise from academics shocked that any state would invest so much in an
academic medical center. It helped UConn land a new
leader.
"Where else right now in health care has this
potential excitement and opportunity?" said Dr. Frank M. Torti, new dean of the UConn
medical school. "I can't think of any place."
Read
more
February 24, 2012
Hopes for the future of "personalized
medicine" lie at the heart of the state's investment in a new research
institute for The Jackson Laboratory on the UConn Health
Center's Farmington campus. Proponents often talk of
developing the ability to tailor treatments for cancer and other complex
ailments to each person's unique genetic code.
But as Dr. Edison Liu, Jackson's new
president and CEO, told an audience at the Connecticut Science Center in
Hartford Friday, the real root of the concept is as simple as the medical
treatment we now take for granted.
February 24, 2012
"We cannot get through the Citizens' Election
Program and the next campaign without more help," Michael Brandi,
executive director of the state's elections watchdog agency, told a working
group of Appropriations Committee members Friday.
Read
more
February 23, 2012
The House of Representatives adopted an emergency
fix Thursday to the state's right-to-know law that could break a legal logjam
blocking the release of voter lists and other omnibus public registries. The
bill would allow public agencies to release voter and property databases
without the arduous task of identifying and redacting addresses of police
officers, prison guards and other "protected" public employees.
Read more
February 23, 2012
Without two key information technology workers who
retired last fall, the state Department of Labor might not be able to adapt its
computer system to new unemployment benefit extension requirements in time to
get checks out to state residents, an agency official said Thursday. The
department wants permission from an ethics panel to hire back the two retirees.
Read
more
February 22, 2012
While the governor and his fellow Democrats leading
the House and Senate declared fiscal stability and pledged to continue trying
to bolster municipal budgets, GOP legislative leaders cited projected deficits,
a bond rating downgrade and cash flow problems as evidence of another impending
fiscal crisis.
Read
more
February 22, 2012
The governor wants to encourage regionalizing by
cutting back on how much the state sends to the smallest school districts. Tiny
Canaan, for example, spends $22,450 for each
of its 139 students, the most expensive per-student spending in the state.
But Canaan First Selectwoman Patricia Ally Mechare says regionalizing doesn't necessarily save money
and argues that her town is "being responsible by spending what it takes,
while the state hasn't."
Read
more
February 22, 2012
Leaders of Connecticut's
small towns were left to read the fiscal tea leaves Wednesday as state leaders
offered starkly contrasting views of Connecticut's
finances: Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and legislative
Democrats declared fiscal stability and pledged continued support, while GOP
legislative leaders cited projected deficits, a bond-rating downgrade and cash
flow problems as evidence of an impending crisis.
Read
more
February 20, 2012
The state is poised to open its employee health plan
to municipalities and school districts, a controversial concept long advocated
by labor unions, town officials and Democratic legislators.
February 17, 2012
Connecticut's
economic recovery should continue this year, although a new study warns that a host of wild cards, from sovereign debt
in Europe to the bioscience initiative in Farmington,
could accelerate growth even more -- or leave the Nutmeg State's
productivity lagging behind the nation's.
February 16, 2012
The Office of Policy and Management this afternoon
backed off its proposal in the revised
fiscal 2013 budget to have the state's major arts and cultural
organizations compete for the money they have traditionally received as an
earmark.
Instead, Secretary Benjamin Barnes indicated in a
statement that the Department of Economic and Community Development will
develop a phased-in approach.
February 16, 2012
The state's clean elections watchdog agency says it
has enough funding to provide public grants for this fall's state elections,
but not enough to monitor how candidates qualify for and spend the money.
"The facts are stark," said Michael J.
Brandi, the agency's executive director.
Read
more
February 15, 2012
Waves of retired teachers once covered by their districts'
health plans are opting to get insurance through the state's less expensive
policy.
If Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has his way, his
budget will slow this migration by increasing the cost the
state's 32,000 retired teachers and spouses would pay to join the state's
health plan. Almost two-thirds of the state's retired teachers get insurance
through the state.
February 15, 2012
Majority Democrats in the state Senate announced a
multi-tiered initiative Wednesday to better safeguard electric service and to
hold Connecticut's
utilities accountable through new performance standards and penalties.
The proposal includes a $300 million state
investment over the next decade to create "microgrids"
-- sections of community centers with extra safeguards to ensure electric
service remains available for grocery stores, gasoline stations and other vital
service providers during large-scale outages.
February 15, 2012
Arts organizations in Connecticut had been feeling the love from
the Malloy administration: a new home in the Department of
Economic and Community Development, leadership that seemed to care what
they had to say, new programs, and not insignificantly -- more funding.
But not after last week.
February 14, 2012
The unusually mild winter might have flummoxed
forecasters, frustrated ski buffs and worried those concerned about climate
change, but so far, it's been a critical break for poor families relying on a
reduced pot of government assistance to pay for heat.
February 13, 2012
More than 70,000 Connecticut households took advantage of a
new tax credit for the working poor during just the first month of state income
tax filings, according to the Department of Revenue Services.
The claims filed under the new state Earned Income
Tax Credit were hailed both by Gov. Dannel P.
Malloy's administration and a leading private, nonprofit anti-poverty group as
evidence of the new program's necessity as well as its success.
February 13, 2012
When animated television tyke Lisa Simpson had to
announce a tax increase to the American public, she deftly called it a
"temporary refund adjustment," avoiding any mention of the
three-letter T-word.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's
administration stole a page from The Simpsons last
week, repackaging a projected deficit in his new budget as a conditional
surplus -- all without using the D-word.
February 8, 2012
A year after building the largest fiscal security
blanket in more than two decades of state budgets, Gov. Dannel
P. Malloy moved onto the fiscal high wire without a net.
Malloy spoke decisively Wednesday about finding
spending cuts to keep his $20.7 billion plan for 2012-13 in balance, but
lawmakers and the state's chief business lobby balked at the plan's barely
visible margin for error.
Read
more
February 8, 2012
Photography by Uma
Ramiah
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Senator McKinney, Representative Cafero, my fellow state officials, ladies and gentlemen of
the General Assembly, honored members of the Judiciary, members of the clergy,
honored guests, and all the citizens of our great state who are watching or
listening today, thank you. Thank you for the honor of inviting me into the
people's House to address you.
February 8, 2012
The health and human services portions of Malloy's
proposed budget adjustments include money to support an effort to move people
out of nursing homes, add three childhood vaccines to the state's program and
offer the first funding boost in five years to private human services
providers.
The administration also intends to move ahead with
plans to seek permission from the federal government to add enrollment
restrictions and scale back benefits in a Medicaid program for low-income
adults without minor children, a move that has drawn criticism from advocates
and some key lawmakers.
Read
more
February 8, 2012
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy
unveiled a revised, $20.73 billion budget plan for the next fiscal year, adding
nearly $330 million in spending over the preliminary budget, largely to fund
additional education aid for towns and to bolster the state employees' pension
fund.
February 7, 2012
After recent retirements, the state Department of
Social Services is relying on retirees hired back through a vendor for
information technology work -- so much so that the commissioner has warned that
a potential ethics opinion discouraging the practice could lead to "a threat
to public health, safety and welfare."
February 7, 2012
Whatever new initiatives Gov. Dannel
P. Malloy unveils Wednesday in his revised budget for the next fiscal year, he
likely won't be asking for much extra staffing to carry them out.
Read
more
February 6, 2012
Municipalities can't afford to take much more from
their public works, police and fire, and other non-education departments.
Read
more
February 6, 2012
Some are questioning whether the prospect of higher
taxes is truly dead ... or simply on hold until after the November elections?
Read
more
February 2, 2012
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.
February 1, 2012
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.
February 1, 2012
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.
Read
more
January 31, 2012
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.
January 31, 2012
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.
January 31, 2012
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.
Read
more
January 30, 2012
"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.
Read
more
Read more News from CTMirror at ››