With nearly 170,000 Connecticut residents struggling to find employment, a state legislative panel has endorsed new restrictions on when businesses can research individuals’ credit and criminal backgrounds. “Nearly half of the employers in this country go into workers’ credit history during the hiring process,” said Rep. Matthew Lesser, D-Middletown, co-sponsor of the bill restricting credit background checks. […]

An appeal from moderate Democrats for decisive leadership to close the state budget deficit left some lawmakers questioning Tuesday whether a rift has opened within the General Assembly’s majority party. A coalition of four senators and 11 representatives sent a letter to party leadership urging immediate action to close the $518.4 million deficit for 2009-10 […]

Gov. M. Jodi Rell took a hit from within her party today when a leading Republican lawmaker accused her of going easy on unionized state employees in her latest plan to eliminate this year’s budget deficit. Rep. Craig A. Miner of Litchfield, ranking House Republican on the Appropriations Committee, told Rell’s budget director during a […]

Gov. M. Jodi Rell came under fire from within her own party Wednesday when a top Republican on the Appropriations Committee accused her of pursuing minimal cuts from unionized state employees’ salaries in her latest bid to reduce the budget deficit. Rell’s plan should call for greater sacrifice by state workers “if the governor really […]

A coalition of 15 moderate Democratic state legislators sent a letter to their leadership urging immediate action to close the $518.4 million deficit for the current fiscal year without borrowing. The letter, signed by four senators and 11 representatives, also expressed concerns about more than $4.6 billion worth of deficits projected in total for the […]

Connecticut can reduce a huge projected increase in long-term health care costs if it can place more patients into home care over the next 15 years, according to a report being released today by an alliance of public, private and institutional leaders. The study, commissioned by the Connecticut Regional Institute for the 21st Century, projects […]

State legislators want to know about tuition changes at public colleges and universities before they are approved, but higher education officials warned Thursday that could create a political and procedural nightmare. “Be very careful, because you’re walking on ground that could become quicksand,” Chancellor David G. Carter of the Connecticut State University system said. Officials […]

After being rebuffed during her late November attempt to cut town aid, Gov. M. Jodi Rell steered clear of that public relations minefield in February, proposing no reductions to major grants in her budget plan for the coming fiscal year. But less than four weeks later, despite virtually no change in an already dismal deficit […]

Connecticut’s hospitals are wary of Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s plan to reinstate a 10-year-old tax on revenues, rejecting the administration’s claim that overall payments to the industry would remain constant, although individual hospitals would experience gains or losses. An official with the Connecticut Hospital Association also said that numerous spending cuts also proposed in the […]

Legislative leaders were lukewarm at best Tuesday in their reception of Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s latest deficit mitigation plan, but they were even vaguer about when – or even if – they would adopt any plans to erase state government’s deficit before the regular General Assembly session ends on May 5. “We’re intending to pass […]

The new state watchdog panel charged with safeguarding hundreds of millions of dollars worth of annual contract awards is stuck at the starting line awaiting a final appointment from Gov. M. Jodi Rell. The Contracting Standards Board, which was supposed to have started work on Jan. 1, still is waiting for an executive director, which […]

After repeatedly declaring that more taxes won’t solve the state’s budget problems, Gov. M. Jodi Rell Monday proposed reinstating a tax on hospital earnings as well as raiding the next fiscal year’s revenues as part of a plan to close a half-billion-dollar budget shortfall. Rell’s second deficit mitigation plan of 2009-2010 would strip nearly $220 […]

At least things haven’t gotten much worse. State Comptroller Nancy Wyman reported Monday that the state budget deficit for this fiscal year has inched downward by $3.4 million over the past month, reaching $518.4 million. The $18.64 billion budget, which has been plagued by monthly deficit forecasts close to $500 million since October, continues to […]

Gov. M. Jodi Rell proposed stripping nearly $220 million in revenue from the next state budget Monday to help close a $500 million-plus shortfall in the current one. But the $18.93 billion budget approved last fall for 2010-11 has a $726 million deficit of its own, according to legislative analysts. And though the governor’s proposal […]

Fed up with telemarketing calls? The next one could help Connecticut pay its bills. Looking to buy a used gun?  The state might get in the business of selling weapons seized by the police. And if you’re not paying your fair share of taxes-at least in the state’s view-lots of folks in Hartford are thinking […]