The University of Connecticut has become increasingly less affordable for low- and middle-income state resident, according to a new legislative study.
January 2014
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Hazard mitigation grant do-over
After a massive outcry from shoreline communities, the state emergency management office is being ordered to reconsider its decision to deny certain federal funds for all home elevations and buyouts related to storm Sandy.
Posted inNews
Study: CT spending for children in steady decline
Over more than two decades, Connecticut’s spending on children has shrunk by $1.8 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars as debt, pension obligations and health care consumed an ever-increasing share of the state budget, according to a study released Friday.
Posted inHealth
Anthem extends payment deadline for new members
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield has extended the payment deadline for customers beginning coverage in February and will continue to provide customer service to people who visit the company’s Wallingford headquarters through the end of the month.
Posted inPolitics
CT Democrats make election-year pitch to older voters
The General Assembly’s election-year session doesn’t begin until next week, but one thing already is clear: Legislators and the governor are ardently courting older voters, one of largest and most reliable elements of the electorate.
Democratic leaders Friday outlined a low-cost, high-profile legislative agenda of consumer protections and other items backed by AARP, the over-50 advocacy group that says polling shows its members comprise 40 percent of voter turnout in Connecticut.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Malloy offers modest tax breaks for retired CT teachers, consumers
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy proposed a second round of tax cuts Friday, including a new income tax break for retired teachers that could provide a strategic edge in his re-election bid.
The governor also backed a sales tax exemption for non-prescription medications, an insurance premium break for cities and towns, extending a credit for business investors and a two-day state park fee holiday.
These breaks, worth about $52 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1, would be in addition to the $155 million sales and gasoline tax rebate Malloy unveiled Thursday.
Posted inEducation, Money, Politics
Governor gets 1,240 pages of requested changes from CT residents
Thousands of people from across the state wrote Gov. Dannel P. Malloy after he asked residents to let him know about obsolete, burdensome, or otherwise ineffective state regulations. Here are a few highlights.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Connecticut women victims of pay gap
Washington – Despite the state’s progressive bent, women in Connecticut earn only about 78 percent of what men make, a gender-wage gap close to the national disparity. The finance, defense, information technology, medical and scientific research industries that hire many people in Connecticut all have large gender-wage disparities.
Posted inHealth, Politics
Democrats want more oversight on hospital ownership changes
The future of Bristol Hospital is as part of a large network, CEO Kurt Barwis believes. But that vision of the hospital’s future relies in part on the legislature: With the strong encouragement of organized labor, legislators will make expanding the regulatory oversight needed for changes in hospital ownership a top priority this year.
Posted inMoney
430 homeless people take shelter
New Haven — Two-hundred eight-seven single adults. Forty-two families, which breaks down to 64 adults and 79 children. All those people slept in beds that didn’t belong to them, either in shelters or in transitional housing, on a single frigid evening this week.
Posted inPolitics
Federal judge upholds Sandy Hook gun law
A federal judge in Hartford on Thursday dismissed a constitutional challenge to the sweeping gun-control legislation passed in Connecticut after the Sandy Hook School massacre. “The court concludes that the legislation is constitutional,” wrote Senior U.S. District Judge Alfred V. Covello.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Malloy learns from Rowland’s slip on 1998 CT tax rebate
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy apparently has learned from former Gov. John G. Rowland’s mistake.
By proposing to rebate sales and gasoline taxes – instead of income taxes – Malloy would spare nearly all recipients from having to share about 30 percent of their bonus with the federal government. Rowland made that mistake in 1998 when he and the General Assembly launched the first tax rebate program in state history.
Posted inNews
Judge, 90: ‘I Was Not Asleep’
New Haven — In a rare self-defense from the bench, a nonagenarian federal judge said she was merely “bored,” not catching a few winks, while presiding over a New Haven trial involving the largest federal drug sweep in state history. Senior Judge Ellen Bree Burns made that statement before the fourth day of proceedings inside […]
Posted inPolitics
CT Democrats plan coronation, not convention
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has been insisting he has yet to decide if he is running for re-election, an assertion that prompts eye-rolling among the Capitol press. On Thursday, his own party made clear they are not buying the indecision claim, either. Connecticut Democrats announced that their nominating convention will be May 16, a Friday […]
Posted inEducation, Politics
After UConn sexual assault complaint, CT women lawmakers call for change
The ripples continue from complaints against the state’s flagship university for how it handled reports from students of sexual assault. The 54 women in the General Assembly Thursday released a list of changes to state law they are seeking in the legislative session that begins next week.