Winners Housing: The budget would fund 100 new units of supportive housing in 2015, provide money for “rapid re-housing” to help homeless families move into permanent, stable housing and add capital funds for affordable housing. There’s also a new department of housing to coordinate it all. Insurance companies: If Malloy’s proposal to end Medicaid coverage […]

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy proposed a $43.8 billion, two-year budget Wednesday that avoids major state tax increases, cuts health care and other benefits for the poor while relying on major new bonding to help close a $1.2 billion deficit. The governor’s proposal is a mixed bag for cities and towns, bolstering spending for education and […]

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Senator McKinney, Representative Cafero, distinguished members of the General Assembly, thank you for inviting me back into the people’s House to address you. I want to recognize and thank my trusted friend and advisor, Connecticut’s exceptional Lt. Governor – Nancy Wyman. I’d like to thank my wife for being here today, […]

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget proposal would eliminate Medicaid coverage for thousands of poor parents, reduce a tax credit for low-income workers, eliminate the state-run Charter Oak Health Plan and slash payments to hospitals. It would also take advantage of federal funds to increase Medicaid enrollment and raise rates paid to primary care providers who […]

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy today will propose a property tax-exemption on most motor vehicles and a phased-in restoration of the popular sales-tax exemption on clothing that he eliminated in 2011, his first year in office. Administration officials briefed mayors this morning on the car-tax plan, but it was not immediately clear if the state was […]

I’ve had about 10 minutes to look through a really big budget book, so bear with me. Keep in mind, this is the PROPOSED budget that the legislature needs to approve. What I can glean right now is — Bus fares will increase from $1.25 to $1.50 beginning in 2014. ADA paratransit fares will increase […]

Leaders of a national right-to-die lobbying group came to Connecticut Tuesday to urge lawmakers to approve a bill to legalize assisted suicide for patients with a terminal illness. During a news conference in the Capitol complex, Barbara Coombs Lee, president of Compassion & Choices, and local supporters, said similar laws have passed in Oregon, Washington […]

Washington — As the debate on gun control intensifies in Congress, expectations of big changes in the nation’s gun laws are diminishing. On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, Reps. Patrick Meehan, R-Pa., Carolyn Maloney D-N.Y., Scott Rigell, R-Va., and Elijah Cummings, D-Md., unveiled a bill that would make “straw” gun purchases — buying a […]

While Gov. Dannel P. Malloy pledged to avoid new taxes and preserve education reforms, the legislature’s top Republicans charged Tuesday that the governor’s new budget dramatically expands the state’s hefty credit card balance. Besides refinancing debt from the last recession and borrowing to prop up municipal aid and support the conversion to Generally Accepted Accounting […]

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy continued his budget preview tour Tuesday, sharing his plan to boost the state’s major education grant to cities and towns by $152.3 million over the next two fiscal years, with nearly all the increase earmarked for low-achieving districts. But Malloy, who will propose his new biennial budget to the General Assembly Wednesday, […]

With the apparent consent of the Malloy administration and in the face of concerns by teachers and the school systems that employ them, the state panel responsible for creating a new grading system for teachers is recommending a slower rollout of its plan. The Performance Evaluation Advisory Council determined Monday that the collective anxiety among […]