March 25, 2010 @ 12:00 am

Republicans who see political opportunity in Connecticut’s fiscal crisis tried not to gloat Thursday watching the General Assembly’s Democratic majority lurch towards a budget deadlock. Democrats on the Appropriations Committee voted to add $350 million in spending to the governor’s budget proposal, despite facing projected deficits for at least the next three years. House Minority […]

How powerful are the members of the legislature’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee? They can keep the sun from setting for two years. By a vote of 35 to 15, the committee approved a bill that delays for two years the “sunset” of the real-estate conveyance tax, which was due to expire July 1. The […]

Gov. M. Jodi Rell has asked the Department of Economic and Community Development to issue a report by April 15 of the economic impact of the national health care reform law. “Connecticut employees – in businesses large and small – face some steep costs associated with the federal health care reform bill.  I think it […]

With demand for safety net programs growing, the legislature’s Appropriations Committee on Thursday proposed increasing funding to state’s social services by $444 million. They also proposed a new hospital tax on providers to bring in $206.8 million for the coming year, which begins July 1. State Medicaid spending increases $67.8 million, but does cut $2.3 […]

Despite nearly $5 billion in deficits projected for through 2012, the state legislature’s Appropriations Committee will recommend later today adding nearly $350 million in spending to next year’s preliminary budget, according to draft documents released by the committee. The Democrat-controlled Appropriations will be asked to adopt a$19.28 billion spending plan for 2010-11, which also tops […]

Gov. M. Jodi Rell demonstrated a flash of defiance and a dash of irony Wednesday in nominating a new batch of judges that Democratic legislators insist the state cannot afford. One of the nominees is her budget chief, Robert L. Genuario, who has been preaching to legislators the gospel of frugality. Now, he has to […]

The 600 Realtors who came to the State Capitol Wednesday couldn’t help but feel like they were being sucker punched when they heard legislators were moving full speed ahead to extend a tax on real estate sales. “They’re picking on us,” said Barry Rosa, vice president of the Connecticut Association of Realtors. “They are singling […]

While state legislators remained divided Wednesday over how to tackle the deficit in Connecticut’s budget, sources said a controversial tax designed to lower consumers’ electric bills now is being considered as a means to bail out state government. “I do believe there is a renewed interest” in a windfall profits tax on electricity generators, said […]

Eighth-graders in Connecticut improved their reading scores significantly and fourth-graders held steady as the state posted some of the nation’s highest scores on results of a national test released Wednesday. However, minority and low-income students continued to lag farther behind white and wealthier students than in most other states on fourth- and eighth-grade reading tests […]

Majority Democrats in the state Senate broke ranks Wednesday with their colleagues in the House of Representatives, announcing they would vote within a few days on their own proposal to close a $500 million-plus shortfall in this fiscal year’s budget. “The current stalemate is unacceptable,” Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn, wrote […]

Getting into the University of Connecticut’s highly competitive business school just got a lot easier for students at the state’s community colleges. On Wednesday UConn president Michael J. Hogan and Marc S. Herzog, chancellor of the state’s 12 community colleges, announced an agreement guaranteeing admission for community college graduates with a 3.3 GPA who have […]