The Connecticut Sustainable Business Council (SBC) was formed by a handful of area organizations with an ambitious, overarching goal — to provide cross-sector support to local businesses in order to ensure a more sustainable future. That might sound technical, but the group’s mission is actually quite simple. More than anything, SBC’s hope is to better connect businesses in order to create an economy that’s built for the future and beneficial to everyone.
Sustainability is key to Connecticut’s future
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Connecticut must reevaluate its business loan practices
With the state’s reputation as a place unfriendly to business, as has been well documented by several major business outlets, it’s time for the state to reintroduce and fund programs to designed to help ALL businesses vs. just the largest.
Posted inJustice
A peek behind bars, and an invitation to reimagine prison
The correction commissioner picked up his plastic spork and dug into his first prison meal since his days as a warden. Up and down the row of fixed tables and stools, an economist, a banker, a teacher, a fire chief, a former city councilman, a church worker and others did the same, their introduction to how 1,400 men do time at Osborn Correctional Institution, a prison that opened 53 years ago.
Posted inPolitics
Q&A: Wyman talks budget, her role in the legislative discussion
Democratic Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman may not have been elected in one of 36 districts of the Connecticut Senate, but she will effectively be the 37th state senator in the next legislative session. The Mirror sat down with Wyman to talk about her role.
Posted inEducation
State says bailout unlikely for Care4Kids child care subsidies
“I don’t have any money to bail them out,” said Benjamin Barnes, the secretary of the governor’s Office of Policy and Management.
Posted inPolitics
Romano, other CT Republicans open to Trump administration jobs
WASHINGTON — After the Trump transition team selects candidates for top jobs, it will turn its attention to thousands of other positions it must fill – including the entire West Wing staff – and Connecticut GOP Party Chairman J.R. Romano and other state Republicans say they would not mind being in the mix.
Posted inPolitics
Blumenthal: Sessions to receive ‘exacting, serious scrutiny’
Sen. Richard Blumenthal and other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee vowed to give Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, tough scrutiny, setting the groundwork for a contentious confirmation hearing.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
An open letter from Connecticut to President-elect Trump
Dear President Elect Donald J. Trump,
I wanted to congratulate you on your unprecedented victory. You have reminded the world that anything is possible as a citizen of the United States;
You’ve reminded us that being overconfident can be your worst enemy and quickest route to defeat;
You’ve reminded us that history repeats itself and pendulums swing both ways and absolutely will when pushed too far to one side or another…
Posted inEducation, Health, Money
State agencies offer more painful possibilities for budget cuts
State agencies have offered the governor’s budget office options as it prepares a 2017-18 state budget proposal. Among those just made public: Some DMV offices could close. Housing subsidies for those with AIDS could be cut. And hundreds more state jobs could be eliminated by privatizing services for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.
Posted inMoney, Politics
In gloomiest forecast yet, deficit in next budget creeps up to $1.5B
Two days after taking a partial look at the next state budget, nonpartisan analysts cast a broader gaze Thursday — and offered their gloomiest forecast in the past 12 months.
Posted inPolitics
No change in three House recounts
The 79-72 House majority won by Democrats on Nov. 8 has withstood recounts in three districts, the secretary of the state’s office announced Thursday.
Posted inPolitics
Looney, Fasano talk rules of the road for evenly divided Senate
Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, and Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, R-North Haven, say they have met once since the election of an evenly divided Senate to explore whether they can open the 2017 session in January without a rules fight. The ability of the lieutenant governor to break ties gives Democrats the upper hand.
Posted inHealth
Average Obamacare prices drop for those with subsidies, rise for others
Exchange customers who signed up for 2017 coverage and get federal help discounting their premiums will save a couple of dollars each month compared to what they pay now. But for those who don’t qualify for financial aid, costs are rising an average of $76, and for some, that’s after switching to plans with less coverage.
Posted inEducation
State auditor: CT wrongly picked up health coverage tab for 3 re-employed teachers
In a review of seven sample cases, State Auditor John Geragosian found that three re-employed teachers still had health benefits being paid for by the state’s Teachers’ Retirement Board rather than by the local school districts employing the teachers.
Posted inMoney
CT lost 7,200 jobs in October, but jobless rate improved to 5.1 percent
Connecticut’s unemployment rate declined three-tenths of a point to 5.1 percent in October, despite the loss of 7,200 jobs, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.