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 […]
New college president is no stranger to crisis management
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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 […]
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Democrats hope to move McCarthy nomination
Washington – With the help of New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg, Gina McCarthy’s stalled nomination to head the Environmental Protection Agency is set to clear a key Senate panel Thursday. The nomination of McCarthy, who once headed Connecticut’s environmental protection agency, will be considered by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, composed of 10 […]
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A fixer’s tale of attempted bribes
New Haven – His name was Harry Raymond Soucy, a brash and egotistical union leader and correction officer who portrayed himself in the backroom of a Waterbury smoke shop as a political fixer able to get things done at the Connecticut State Capitol. His solution: Bribes disguised as contributions to the top Democrat and Republican […]
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Anti-smoking forces push higher cigarette tax to solve state’s budget woes
With shrinking revenues complicating state budget talks, anti-smoking advocates pitched a nearly 30 percent hike in the cigarette tax Wednesday as an increase most voters would welcome. Key state officials responded warily to the 95-cents-per-pack hike proposal, and Connecticut’s grocery stores argued it would harm retail sales in a vulnerable economy. “The answers are loud […]
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Free dental clinic organizers looking to reach smaller cities
The dentists who run the annual Connecticut Mission of Mercy try to give each part of the state a chance to host the massive free dental clinic. There’s need, after all, in every town. This year’s clinic, which will be held June 7 and 8 in Bridgeport, is expected to draw thousands of people. At […]
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Pentagon shrinks furlough time for sub base workers
Washington – Hundreds of civilian workers at Naval Submarine Base New London will get a break from forced unpaid leave, but not much of one. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Tuesday said he would cut back – from 14 to 11 — the number of furlough days civilians working for the Pentagon must take this […]
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Waiting for the next storm, Part 3: A rail corridor exposed
This is the final installment of a three-part series examining areas on Connecticut’s coast that are vulnerable to flooding. The first two stories focused on residential areas. Now, we visit a beach that suffered severe damage – which has also exposed critical infrastructure right behind it. East Lyme — Beaches, marshes and wetlands on the […]
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Senate GOP leader: stop giving governor blank checks for businesses
The Senate voted Wednesday night to increase the amount of money the governor can use to induce out-of-state companies to relocate here or to keep them from leaving the state– a move that infuriates Senate Minority Leader John McKinney.
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Jackson Lab hires seventh principal investigator for Conn. institute
A computational biologist who studies the factors affecting gene expression is joining the faculty of The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, based at the UConn Health Center in Farmington. Duygu Ucar is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. She is the seventh principal investigator hired by The Jackson Laboratory’s Connecticut institute. Genes in the […]
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UConn President forms task force to ‘explore all matters of civil behavior and speech’
Still recovering from a letter critical of the president of the University of Connecticut that went viral, officials at the state’s flagship university have decided to form a task force to “explore all matters related to civil behavior and speech at the university.” In a letter sent to students Wednesday, UConn President Susan Herbst wrote that the […]
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Spending cap gives senators leverage over state budget debate
For the next few weeks, each of 22 Democrats in the state Senate is a king or a queen — at least when it comes to the budget. And as Gov. Dannel P. Malloy seeks lawmakers’ approval to rewrite the rules of constitutional spending cap, it’s becoming clear that keeping all of those senators happy […]
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Suit hammers huge Medicaid backlog, long waits
Every month, thousands of poor state residents go without health care coverage while their applications for Medicaid linger, without being approved or denied, for longer than federal law allows. The numbers “tell the whole story,” attorney Sheldon Toubman said Tuesday at the start of a trial in Hartford centered on allegations that the state Department […]