Washington -– As the U.S. Census Bureau collects information about housing from Connecticut residents in the next few months, the agency faces trouble in Washington. The sequester, or across-the-board federal spending cuts, are digging deep into the agency’s budget and conservative Republicans want to gut or eliminate many of its programs. That’s making a broad […]
Census Bureau under fire from the right
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Fed economist says state can shave big dollars off towns’ spending
Connecticut can reduce the cost of municipal government dramatically over time, but it won’t happen unless state leaders pave the way, a top economist with the Federal Reserve Bank said Friday. Yolanda Kodrzycki, vice president and director of the reserve’s New England Public Policy Center in Boston, also said other states particularly have cut costs […]
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Hundreds of kindergarten students suspended from school
It started with a report to the state’s Office of the Child Advocate that a child had been expelled from preschool. Jamey Bell, the child advocate, saw no reason why a child that young should be suspended, and wanted to know how widespread the problem was. She also had learned that a 7-year-old had been arrested […]
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Testimony: Donovan’s biggest money men had stake in legislation
New Haven – The two biggest fundraisers for then-House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan’s 2012 congressional campaign were Harry Raymond Soucy and Mark Masselli, men with significant financial interests before the General Assembly, a campaign official testified Friday. Soucy, according to previous witnesses, was responsible for delivering checks totaling $27,500 from donors trying to ensure that […]
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Water bill could help Connecticut in navigation, flood protection
The Senate voted this week on a water resources bill Connecticut lawmakers hope will clear the way to fund dozens of projects in Connecticut, including the dredging of New Haven Harbor, 18 beach erosion projects along the coastline and hurricane barriers in Stamford, New London and Pawcatuck. In a rare display of bipartisanship, the Water […]
Posted inMoney, Politics
Town leaders treated to partisan spat at Capitol
Leaders of small towns may have headed to the state Capitol this week to lobby legislators not to cut their state funding, but what they got instead was a front-row view of legislative leaders bickering over the state’s budget crisis.
Posted inHealth
State getting more mental health first aid trainers
Thirty people will receive training next week to become instructors in mental health first aid, a program that helps participants learn to recognize signs of mental disorders and help others get professional help. Those instructors will then offer mental health first aid training in communities across the state to people who have regular contact with […]
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Symposium explores techno approach to medical patient care
Imagine a world where you could text a medical update to your doctor instead of coming in for a follow up. Or where your doctor could teleconference with several medical specialists at once to discuss your treatment, saving you a trip. This patient-centered, technological approach was the focus of a symposium on expanding access to […]
Posted inPolitics
Feds secretly videotaped House leaders Donovan and Cafero
New Haven – In a secretly videotaped encounter in 2012, then-House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan, D-Meriden, seemed to cheerfully take credit for killing a tobacco tax bill, then recoiled from the idea seconds later. “I took care of ya, didn’t I?” a smiling Donovan told Harry Raymond Soucy, a union friend acting on behalf of […]
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Connecticut lawmakers seek federal funds to rebuild Sandy Hook Elementary school
Washington –- Saying children should not have to walk down the halls where their classmates were slaughtered, Connecticut lawmakers introduced bills in Congress Thursday that would secure federal funds to build a new Sandy Hook Elementary School Last week, town leaders in Newtown voted to tear down the existing facility and build a new one […]
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McCarthy nomination approved by Senate panel
Washington –- A key Senate panel Thursday approved the nomination of Gina McCarthy for the top job at the Environmental Protection Agency on a strictly partisan vote. All 10 Democratic members of the Environment and Public Works Committee voted for the nominee, including an ailing New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg who has hardly been on […]
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New college president is no stranger to crisis management
Gregory Gray is familiar with crisis management. Ten minutes on the job of leading a three-campus community college system just outside Los Angeles, his phone rang with an emergency message from the vice chancellor. “We have to cut $16.5 million from our budget this week,” Gray recalled of the conversation. He was told he would […]
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From ctlatinonews.com: Connecticut’s expanding array of Latino faces
This op-ed piece, by Orlando Rodriguez, originally appeared in www.ctlatinonews.com. Yolanda Negrόn knows Willimantic well after graduating from Eastern Connecticut State University and serving on the Windham Board of Selectmen. She says she is seeing “many new faces” in the local Latino community, and these new faces are not Puerto Ricans. Willimantic provides a window […]
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Compromise reached to provide oversight to university spending
Democratic Senators have decided they do want to hold hearings after all to vet the budgets of the state’s public colleges and universities — kind of. Last week, a Republican proposal that would require officials from the University of Connecticut and the Board of Regents to come before lawmakers to explain their proposed budget before it […]
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Big health care savings help counter shrinking state budget revenues
State officials trying to close a last-minute hole in the next budget got some good news Wednesday in the form of major savings in health care costs for retired state employees. The Legislature’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis issued a memo indicating it has reduced its projected cost of providing health care to retired state […]