Keith M. Phaneuf

The Senate voted unanimously Friday to tighten the limit on state government’s credit card as lawmakers adopted a bill to cancel or reduce planned borrowing for dozens of community and regional projects in their home districts. The measure, which now heads to the House of Representatives, also reduces bond authorizations for tourism programs, open space preservation […]

Gov. M. Jodi Rell asked state legislators Wednesday to put nearly $1 billion in operating costs on the state’s credit card for the second year in a row as part of a complex scheme to avoid securitizing future revenues. The proposal, which is actually centered on tearing a new $1 billion hole in the current budget […]

State employee unions have rejected Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s call to offer the second worker retirement incentive program in two years, according to a statement released late Wednesday night by the administration. But the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition responded that it didn’t reject anything. Rather, it said, it insisted that Rell assess how a […]

One day after the legislature’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus threatened to hold up her nominees for judgeships because of a lack of minority candidates, Gov. M. Jodi Rell came up with a compromise to get her choices approved by the Judiciary Committee. Three weeks after Rell threatened to veto a proposal by Democrats to […]

Just two weeks after raiding the next state budget to balance the current one, Gov. M. Jodi Rell unveiled a plan this afternoon to do the reverse – and thereby replace $1.3 billion in planned securitization with nearly $1 billion in more traditional borrowing. The odd back-and-forth maneuver still would place new burdens on residents […]

State employee unions have rejected Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s call to offer the second worker retirement incentive program in two years, according to a written statement released late tonight by the administration. But the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition responded that it didn’t reject anything, but rather insisted that Rell first assess how a second […]

Connecticut’s hopes of getting a balanced state budget for the next fiscal year may have been dealt a fatal blow by new warnings that nearly $366 million in proposed-but-not-approved federal aid is in jeopardy. Top legislative leaders from both parties conceded Monday any failure to receive the anticipated, expanded federal stimulus aid for health care […]

Forget next year’s $726 million budget shortfall, and the billions in deficits projected for the years ahead. Right now, for this brief moment, the current state budget may actually be in the black. Neglected in all the deficit angst, that short-term fiscal good news came in a report from the Office of Policy and Management, […]

A key piece of Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s plan to close the deficit in next year’s budget hinges on a legal question with a murky answer: Can the state offer its employees retirement incentives without their unions’ approval? Rell’s budget office says yes. The unions say no, and add that they have “deep concerns” about […]

After months on the campaign trail,the Democrats and Republicans hoping to be the next governor already have worked out their answers to toughest questions, particularly those about state government’s fiscal woes. But with the nominating conventions just four weeks away, the 11 candidates who attended Tuesday’s forums at the University of Connecticut Law School in Hartford […]

If there’s a silver lining to the difficult task of closing the $726 million shortfall built into the next state budget, it’s that the job also could reduce a deficit five times its size looming less than 15 months down the road. But nearly three-quarters of the plan Gov. M. Jodi Rell offered Monday to […]

Gov. M. Jodi Rell Monday signed on to an idea proposed by legislative Republicans last week to offer another round of retirement incentives to state employees. The Republican governor confirmed late Monday that an early retirement incentive program–the second in two years– was among a package of budget-cutting options she outlined in closed-door talks earlier […]

If the Capitol seems quiet over the next two weeks, it could be because state officials are collectively holding their breath. Data compiled shortly after the April 15 income tax filing deadline traditionally have been a key indicator of how Connecticut’s economy, and its government finances, will fare over the rest of the calendar year. […]

The state legislature’s Appropriations Committee killed a bill Monday that would have allowed residents to register and cast ballots on the same day during the 2011 municipal primaries. The pilot program, which was rejected 39-11 with bipartisan opposition, also had been opposed by municipal registrars of voters, who saw it as the first step toward […]

It was billed as a new plan to erase a $726 million deficit in next fiscal year’s budget without raising taxes. In fact, the proposal offered Thursday by the legislature’s Republican minority piggy-backed on Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s Feb. 3 budget plan, which was designed to cancel $686 million in projected red ink. The GOP […]