In addition to their primary education grants, about $550 million in other education-related grants for Connecticut towns are on the chopping block, with recommended cuts ranging from 10 percent to complete elimination of funding. We’ve got the breakdown.
Big education budget cuts — and potentially lots of smaller ones
Posted inJustice, Politics
Palmer overcomes GOP opposition, wins another term on high court
Justice Richard N. Palmer, author of state Supreme Court decisions that struck down the last vestige of capital punishment and legalized same-sex marriage in Connecticut, was confirmed for a fourth and final eight-year term on the court Wednesday after a rare second-guessing of the court’s opinions and conduct by the General Assembly.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Bill to give towns more time to pass budget bogs down in Senate
State legislators sparred for the second day in a row Wednesday over whether to give communities more time to adopt their local budgets — a fight that left the extension issue in limbo after a 90-minute Senate debate.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money
Battle resumes over opening utility markets to Millstone
State legislators are grappling for the second year in a row over whether to allow the owners of the Millstone Nuclear Power Station to sell electricity to Connecticut’s utilities.
Posted inEducation, Money, Politics, Transportation
Malloy asks CT businesses to push for transportation ‘lockbox’
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy urged business leaders Wednesday to help him convince legislators to safeguard transportation funds. The governor also said cities and towns must shoulder some of the burden of surging teachers’ pension costs.
Posted inHealth
American Health Care Act: Who gains and loses in Connecticut
Here’s how subsidies for buying health insurance would change in Connecticut, depending on age and income.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
DeStefano poisons public opinion, betrays agents, by calling ICE ‘jerks’
I am writing in response to a recent article that appeared in the New Haven Independent and was then reprinted by the CT Mirror. The article was entitled “Ex-Mayor: ICE Raids in Immigrant Friendly New Haven Likely Again.” In the article, former Mayor John DeStefano was quoted as stating in a presentation at Yale University that “The federal government is going to do exactly what those jerks did in Fair Haven.” The “jerks” he was referring to were federal immigration officers. After serving as an FBI special agent for 23 years, and working with ICE agents in numerous cases, I want to object to Mayor DeStefano’s use of the word “jerks” in describing these officers.
Posted inHealth, Money, Politics
What the GOP Obamacare replacement bill means for you and CT
The Republican proposal has big implications for Connecticut residents and state government. Here are nine things to know about it.
Posted inHealth, Politics
Insurers quietly assessing GOP health plan’s benefits and pitfalls
WASHINGTON — The nation’s health insurers are weighing the GOP’s newly released bill to replace the Affordable Care Act, which contains things they wanted – and some things they may not like, but for now keeping their opinions to themselves. “If they are smart, they are going to remain silent and let the legislation take its course,” said Rep. John Larson, D-1st District.
Posted inPolitics
MGM uses Obama interior secretary to fight new tribal casino
Lobbyists for MGM Resorts International made a well-timed play Tuesday in their fight to stop a new tribal casino in Connecticut, delivering a warning from former Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar that the proposal would jeopardize the state’s revenue-sharing agreement with the Mashantucket Pequots and Mohegans. The tribes dismissed Salazar as a paid consultant.
Posted inEducation, Money
Little progress reported on closing the state’s juvenile jail
It’s been more than a year since Gov. Malloy said he would close the state’s controversial jail for juvenile offenders. Legislators received an update this week on where that promise stands – and the administration has yet to recommend an alternative.
Posted inEducation
DCF: 22,000 citizen-children of undocumented parents in CT
“We know we have many, many children who are here legally but whose families are not,” DCF Commissioner Joette Katz told legislators recently. “And if in fact their families are deported you will see a huge increase in the number of children who will have to come into DCF care and custody.”
Posted inMoney
Partisan CT budget feud extends to town budgets as well
The partisan divide at the state Capitol was in full view Monday as a proposal to give communities more time to adopt their local budgets polarized Democrats and Republicans.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
An opportunity to lower Connecticut’s electric rates
The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result. Connecticut residents have paid among the highest prices for electricity in the nation for too long. Calls by those who benefit from these high prices to keep things the same are certainly self-interested and definitely anti-consumer.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Legislators, leave the pharmaceutical industry alone
While no one can argue with the need to reign in healthcare spending, doing so by trying to tamper with the free marketplace could be harmful to Connecticut’s economy. Efforts to force the pharmaceutical industry through unprecedented, egregious regulations will do nothing to help patient’s pocketbooks and more to harm the industry as a whole, an industry that employs thousands of high paying jobs in our state.