Facing a legislative inquiry after the state’s worst power outage, Connecticut’s largest electric utility intends to defend its performance today by telling legislators that it restored power to more customers and in less time after Tropical Storm Irene than in any previous blackout. Jeffrey D. Butler, the president and chief operating officer of Connecticut Light […]

Municipal officials gave Connecticut’s utility companies high marks for their communication efforts leading up to and during Tropical Storm Irene during a state legislative hearing Monday, though post-storm efforts drew mixed reviews. And while the top executives for Connecticut Light & Power Co. and United Illuminating called for lawmakers to grant them expanded authority to […]

The new state panel charged with ensuring fairness in Connecticut’s education financing system hit its first quandary Thursday: How do you fix the program when decades of political compromises and nearly $3.8 billion in under-funding have left virtually all communities–rich and poor alike–feeling short-changed? In its first detailed briefing on state education financing, the Education […]

The head of the state’s largest teachers’ union issued a call Wednesday to “upgrade the status” of Connecticut educators and address slipping wages and benefits–a call greeted with some skepticism by state and municipal leaders grappling with long-term budget problems. After acknowledging some of the problems facing the state education system–including a wide achievement gap […]

Connecticut could reverse most of its small business losses from the decade just prior to the last recession by easing the burdens that make it one of the most regulated states in the nation, according to the University of Connecticut’s new latest quarterly economic journal released today. The fall issue of The Connecticut Economy, released […]

Although Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration is counting on a continuing decline in the state’s prison population–having closed two institutions in the past four months, laid off 21 front-line correction supervisors, and planning to close another facility soon–one group of inmates is bucking the trend. Numbers of accused but unsentenced inmates have risen each of […]

Though many middle-class Connecticut households will lose $200 next spring when a popular credit on their state income tax return shrinks, there is a silver lining: Those same filers will get nearly one-third of that cut back from the federal government. And the head of an economic think-tank at the University of Connecticut says that […]

The longstanding claim that tax hikes will drive people out of Connecticut was quick to resurface earlier this year as politicians and special interest groups reacted to more than $1.6 billion in state and municipal increases ordered by the legislature and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. But a new study by a Washington, D.C.-based fiscal policy […]

State government began this summer trying to force online retailers to collect tax on sales to Connecticut consumers. Next up could be the Internet travel brokers who refer business to Connecticut’s hotels and bed-and-breakfasts. And the stakes are high, given that the state’s occupancy tax just jumped by one-quarter, from 12 to 15 percent. The […]

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration already has secured one-fifth of this year’s savings called for in the union concession deal–and apparently won’t be trying to take any more funding from Connecticut’s three chief watchdog agencies. Office of Policy and Management Secretary Benjamin Barnes reported Tuesday that $135 million was withheld from agencies’ budget allotments for […]

Connecticut was on pace to achieve a strong economic recovery by the end of 2013–until both national and state economies sputtered during the first half of 2011, according to the latest quarterly analysis released Friday by the University of Connecticut. The failure of federal stimulus grants to spur economic expansion, coupled with subsequent government spending […]

While talk of a double-dip recession arose again Friday amid gloomy national job numbers, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration remained optimistic new union concessions will keep labor costs affordable–even though the package lacks an out-clause to cope with fiscal emergencies. The lack of any such provision, coupled with a four-year prohibition against layoffs for most […]

While Connecticut lost over 119,000 jobs during the Great Recession, its impact was not borne evenly as young workers and ethnic minorities suffered disproportionately high unemployment rates, according to a new labor report issued Thursday by a New Haven-based public policy research group. Connecticut Voices for Children also found long-term unemployment is particularly high, particularly […]

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy named the head of the state Board of Accountancy, David L. Guay, on Thursday to serve as the first executive administrator of Connecticut’s new unified watchdog agency. Guay, a South Windsor resident and executive director of the accountancy board since 1989, was one of three finalists recommended in late July by […]