While Gov. Dan Malloy used his first executive order Wednesday to begin whipping Connecticut’s finances into shape, state legislators warned they aren’t ready to go cold turkey when it comes to budget gimmicks. And though Malloy kept a campaign pledge to begin the conversion to generally accepted accounting principles on Day One, he stretched that […]

Despite a record-setting budget deficit, the state should consider creating a new agency to resolve a growing backlog of employee complaints of corruption, mismanagement, waste and unsafe behavior, Connecticut’s retiring state auditors proposed Monday. Robert G. Jaekle and Kevin P. Johnston also used their final annual report to recommend closing a loophole in the state […]

Connecticut’s cities and towns made it clear Monday they’re guarding against the traditional shell game state government has employed in past fiscal crises – shielding assistance in high profile programs while stripping funding from lesser ones. And this year’s game has a new wrinkle after many state officials campaigned this past fall on a pledge […]

Gov.-elect Dan Malloy has spent the better part of the last year trying to navigate between a political rock and a fiscal hard place. On one side there’s a general public wary of the next major state tax hike, state employee unions still smarting from 2009 concessions, and a host of other special interests fearful […]

Connecticut and most other states have watched for much of the past decade as Internet retail transactions increasingly have cut into their sales tax collections. Though consumers here always have been required to pay tax on their online purchases, political pressures, a lack of direction from the federal government and even legal challenges from Internet […]

Gov.-elect Dan Malloy tapped West Hartford Democrat Kevin B. Sullivan, a former longtime state Senate leader and lieutenant governor, to lead the state’s tax agency. Sullivan, 61, will assume control of the Department of Revenue Services as the new Malloy administration prepares to address what effectively amounts to the largest budget shortfall in state history–a […]

Gov.-elect Dan Malloy and his nominee for public safety commissioner, Reuben Bradford, announced two top appointments Wednesday for the upper command within the department. Malloy and Bradford named Danny R. Stebbins to serve as deputy commissioner and colonel of the state police, and Robert Corona as lieutenant colonel and commanding officer of field operations. “Reuben […]

Gov.-elect Dan Malloy reappointed state Banking Commissioner Howard Pitkin on Tuesday to serve in his administration. A 30-year veteran of the Department of Banking, Pitkin has lead the agency for the past five years. “Howard Pitkin has had a long, successful tenure … and I’ve been impressed with his leadership since becoming commissioner five years […]

State government has a history of offering early retirement incentives to get out of its fiscal messes, but that’s not a lock to happen in 2011 if Gov.-elect Dan Malloy’s comments Tuesday were any indication. Asked about recent comments from state legislators that more retirement incentives could be on tap after he takes office in […]

For the first time in nearly two decades, state government will start the year with a new team of fiscal and programmatic watchdogs with Tuesday’s naming of Democrat John C. Geragosian and Republican Robert M. Ward as the auditors of public accounts. Geragosian’s appointment also opens another key position in the legislature: The New Britain […]

Majority Democrats in the state Senate appointed new leaders Tuesday in 10 of 27 legislative committees, including Eric Coleman of Bloomfield as co-chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee in the 2011 General Assembly session. And with two more chairmanships–those of the committees on children and veterans affairs–still to be named, Senate Democrats could be looking […]

Gov.-elect Dan Malloy tapped a longtime assistant attorney general, Anthony Jannotta, to join his legal team on Thursday. Jannotta, who will work under Malloy’s general counsel, Andrew J. McDonald, has spent the past decade-and-a-half working for Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. “Anthony Jannotta is well respected in Connecticut’s legal community, and someone who has significant experience […]

The state Department of Transportation has increasing difficulty completing projects on time and under budget, needs to improve communication with environmental protection staff and lacks any systemic way to measure its goals, according to a new report from the General Assembly’s chief investigative panel. But the Program Review and Investigations Committee report also concluded that […]

The dysfunctional relationship between Gov. M. Jodi Rell and the Democrat-controlled General Assembly regarding their joint custody of the state budget is ending the way it began two years ago – with mutual charges of irresponsibility. The governor’s budget office used it’s the final monthly budget projection of the administration this week to blast new […]

The guiding principle at Wednesday’s State Bond Commission might be summed up as, “A playground in the hand is worth 38 rail cars on order.” That variation on a time-honored adage would explain why Gov. M. Jodi Rell – 12 days after being publicly thwarted from completing a rail project dear to her heart – would […]