Keep Current on the State’s Budget with CTMirror.org at http://ctmirror.org/money
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
****************************
January 30, 2012
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy
secured Connecticut's
investment in a major genetic research initiative Monday -- but not before one
more partisan debate.
****************************
January 27, 2012
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.
****************************
January 27, 2012
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.
Read
more
****************************
January 26, 2012
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.
****************************
January 25, 2012
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.
Read
more
****************************
January 25, 2012
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.
Read
more
****************************
January 24, 2012
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.
Read
more
****************************
January 23, 2012
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.
****************************
January 20, 2012
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.
Read
more
****************************
January 20, 2012
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.
****************************
January 18, 2012
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.
Read
more
****************************
January 17, 2012
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.
Read
more
****************************
January 17, 2012
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.
Read
more
****************************
January 17, 2012
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?
Read
more
****************************
January 13, 2012
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.
****************************
January 12, 2012
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.
Read more
****************************
January 11, 2012
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."
Read
more
****************************
January 11, 2012
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.
Read
more
****************************
January 6, 2012
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.
Read
more
****************************
January 5, 2012
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.
Read
more
****************************
January 4, 2012
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.
Read
more
****************************
December 31, 2011
"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."
Read more
****************************
December 29, 2011
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
****************************
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.
Read
more