The Economy

Connecticut's transportation network is facing its own perfect storm of aging infrastructure, heavy usage and harsh weather conditions - all compounded by a slumping economy and shrinking government funding, according to a draft report from the state's Transportation Strategy Board.

The position paper outlining transportation needs, the first of four components that will ultimately comprise the board's 2011 update to its statewide transportation strategy, warns this confluence of bad conditions could require a major investment - despite the state's fiscal crisis - unless Connecticut wants to risk its economic future. Read more

When state legislators adopted a host of new tax and fee hikes last September, analysts estimated they would raise enough to cover about $700 million in projected revenue erosion tied to a slumping economy and provide another $250 million in extra funds to boot.

But with the final calculation on the 2009-10 fiscal year almost complete, nine of the 12 major tax categories in the General Fund fell short of their mark - including the two giants, income and sales, that provide over 80 percent of all General Fund tax dollars. Read more

State government is on pace to close the books on the last fiscal year $393.3 million in the black - $260 million higher than the surplus projected when the new budget was adopted in early May - Gov. M. Jodi Rell's administration reported today.

The latest surplus projection, which also stands about $150 million above the administration's estimate one month ago, stems from modest improvements in sales and insurance industry taxes and in revenue from licenses, permits and fees. Read more

State Comptroller Nancy Wyman projected this afternoon that state government will have a $242.9 million surplus when it closes the books on the fiscal year that ended Wednesday. Read more

Connecticut is one of seven states that will run out of money to pay state employee pensions over the next decade, coming up short in 2019 due to poor savings habits and generous guaranteed benefit levels, according to a recent study by Northwestern University.

And Connecticut's pension fund could become insolvent sooner than that, according to Joshua D. Rauh, an associate professor of finance at the university's Kellogg School of Management, if the 8 percent return on investments this state and most others typically count on are not realized in the near future. Read more

When Connecticut officials debate taxes, the arguments inevitably lead to comparisons with border states.

Anticipating a watershed debate in the 2011 legislative session as Connecticut confronts a mammoth, $3.4 billion budget deficit, legislators and gubernatorial candidates have stressed the importance of matching the neighbors: If taxes have to go up, make sure they stay below those in Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. Read more

Gov. M. Jodi Rell has signed into law a bill intended to streamline issuance of state permits and licenses.

Rell's office said the bill, a compromise between industry and environmental groups, will "expedite job creation by breaking through bureaucratic backlogs without undermining environmental protections." Read more

Despite being locked between two of the country's oldest sports markets, Fairfield County would be a more attractive site for a Major League baseball franchise than Milwaukee or Denver, two MLB host communities, according to the latest quarterly economic report from the University of Connecticut.

But don't buy those season tickets just yet. Read more

A controversial system for exposing state budget deficits that the Democrat-controlled legislature forced on Gov. M. Jodi Rell last year could come back to bite Democrats this fall - less than three weeks before Election Day.

Commonly known as the "consensus revenue" law, the statute requires the legislature's nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis and the governor's budget staff to issue new revenue projections for the current and next four fiscal years on Oct. 15.

Now,  with hundreds of millions of dollars in anticipated federal aid stalled on Capitol Hill, and with the stock market having plunged more than 1,000 points below the level state analysts used to forecast a modest recovery back in early May, Republicans hope the mid-October report could be a major political embarrassment for Democrats at the worst possible time. Read more