After failing for years to properly invest in highways, rail and bridges, the legislature should relinquish oversight to a transportation authority immune from the pressure of election-year politics, House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz said Wednesday.
Council of Small Towns
Posted inEducation, Money, Politics
Towns ask why CT officials won’t touch teachers’ pensions
Connecticut towns are asking why state officials are not reducing retirement benefits nor deferring another income tax cut for retired teachers, given the state’s huge budget crisis.
Posted inJustice, Money
Towns want AG’s opinion on responsibility for unclaimed corpses
Connecticut’s cities and towns are seeking an opinion from Attorney General George Jepsen on whether communities now must take responsibility for disposition of unclaimed human remains.
Posted inEducation, Money, Politics
CT towns say they aren’t prepared for last-minute cut to state aid
While Connecticut municipalities decried a last-minute cut in state assistance Friday, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration defended the legality of his line-item veto targeting local aid.
Posted inHealth
A Connecticut compromise on firefighters’ cancer relief
Firefighters left the State Capitol last year in a fury over the refusal of House leaders to call a vote on legislation providing them lost-wage coverage for work-related cancers. Just after midnight Wednesday, they watched a bipartisan compromise pass unanimously with the blessing of the municipalities that once thwarted them.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Bye urges colleagues, Malloy to scale back town aid cuts
The Senate chair of the General Assembly’s budget-writing panel challenged her colleagues and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy on Thursday to ease the municipal aid cuts they are seeking — or watch one budget be rejected after another. Sen. Beth Bye also fears many cities and towns already are making plans to increase property tax rates based on the state budgets proposed over the past week.
Posted inMoney, Politics
For cities, towns: Does blocking mandates trump new state aid?
Despite a Senate Democratic plan to pump $700 million in sales tax receipts into communities over the next two years to relieve property taxpayers, municipal leaders took aim Wednesday at another of the caucus’s key initiatives: a mandated expansion of workers’ compensation for police and fire-fighters.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Malloy trying to spare towns from cuts, but makes no promises
After four years of assuring cities and towns they would be spared from the state budget axe, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy brought a different message Tuesday to municipal leaders. I’m doing my best, but no promises.