Today was Michael Meotti’s last day at the Board of Regents for Higher Education — seven weeks after he announced his intention to resign. Meotti’s resignation was the result of a pay-raise scandal and other events that in mid-October led legislators to question their confidence in the leadership of the 100,000-student system. Board of Regents […]
Seven weeks after resigning, Meotti leaves college system
Posted inEducation
What the budget cuts to vo-tech schools won’t affect
Connecticut Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor said Thursday he is not sure where the $1.2 million mid-year cut to the state’s vocational technical high schools will come from. But he has determined where it will not come from. It will not come from sports programs and the scheduled opening of J.M. Wright Technical High School in […]
Posted inEducation
Vo-Tech Superintendent leaving
Patricia A. Ciccone, the superintendent of the state’s Vocational-Technical High School System, is leaving the system after more than a decade. Ciccone will become the superintendent of Westbrook Public Schools in January. Her salary will be $152,000. The vo-tech system has 17 schools serving 11,000 students. Education Commissioner Stefan Pryor told legislators on the Higher […]
Posted inHealth
An exchange by any other name
Health reform is full of jargon, and here’s another term to learn: Access Health. That’s the winner of a search for a new name for Connecticut’s health insurance exchange, the virtual store for selling coverage that will open next fall. The exchange’s staff spent two months researching “consumer friendly” name options, and testing the possibilities. […]
Posted inNews
Congress likely to shrink mortgage deduction
Once considered untouchable, the tax break available to homeowners for the interest they pay on their mortgages is now vulnerable to new limitations that are likely to have an bigger impact in Connecticut than in most of the rest of the nation. One of the oldest tax breaks, the mortgage interest deduction is designed to […]
Posted inNews
Malloy shrinks deficit with cuts to social services, colleges
Connecticut’s social services safety net and its public colleges and universities took the brunt Wednesday of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s first effort to whittle down a $363 million state budget deficit. The administration released $123 million worth of emergency cuts ordered by the governor, including nearly $70 million aimed at health care and social service […]
Posted inNews
What exactly will the new insurance exchange offer?
A year from now, state residents will have a new marketplace for buying health insurance — think of it like a virtual store for health plans. And the policymakers at work developing the rules for the market are facing a key question about how much discretion to use in determining which health plans it will […]
Posted inEducation
A closer look at Connecticut’s higher education salaries
The Malloy administration insists that the $410,000 compensation package it awarded in 2011 to the former president of the state’s college system was competitive. “This was very moderate in comparison” to other public college systems, Mark Ojakian, the governor’s chief of staff, said recently. Robert A. Kennedy resigned as president in October after a series of […]
Posted inEducation
What brought down Kennedy and Meotti?
Gov. Malloy announcing Robert Kennedy as the college system’s president Reorganizing the state universities and community colleges may have been Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s idea, but handpicking who would lead the merged, 100,000-student system wasn’t his call — at least not according to the legislators who crafted the merger bill. That didn’t stop the governor, […]
Posted inNews
More People Took Trains Last Weekend
More cars were expected on the roads this past Thanksgiving compared to 2008, given a slightly better economy and lower gas prices. But, public transit ridership was up, at least in the New York Metro area. First, though, look a beautiful picture of traffic in the New York area courtesy the Associated Press: From spokeswoman […]
Posted inPolitics
Connecticut was seventh in voter turnout in 2012
Connecticut had a voter turnout of 74 percent in the 2012 presidential election, ranking the state seventh in the nation, though lower than the state’s turnout of about 78 percent in 2008 and 2004. Secretary of the State Denise Merrill announced the turnout numbers today as she formally certified election results that gave Democrats a […]
Posted inHealth
Nashville group intends to buy Bristol Hospital
Bristol Hospital officials announced Wednesday that it is in the process of being acquired by Vanguard Health Systems, a Nashville-based network of for-profit hospitals. The hospital’s parent company, Bristol Hospital and Health Care Group, signed a letter of intent to be acquired by Vanguard, which owns 28 hospitals in Arizona, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan and Texas. […]
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money
A New Year’s gift of higher electric bills?
If the folks who run New England’s electricity transmission grid get their way there’s a good chance you’ll be looking at higher electric bills come New Year’s. But it won’t be without a fight. Three Connecticut state agencies have joined three other New England states to protest a proposed 10 percent budget increase by ISO-New […]
Posted inNews
Holder, Malloy give a new look at an old idea on guns
New Haven — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy gave a high-profile roll out Tuesday to an anti-gun violence strategy that targets hundreds of young minority men deemed most likely to kill or be killed in Bridgeport, Hartford and New Haven. In an era of tight resources and a political unwillingness […]
Posted inNews
FEMA to Connecticut: We’re going to be here for a while
Nearly a month after Superstorm Sandy hit the region, thousands of Connecticut residents are still in need of help, federal and state officials said Tuesday. Speaking at a federally designated Disaster Recovery Center in downtown Bridgeport, FEMA administrator Craig Fugate promised, “We will not stop until everyone’s life is back to normal.” More than 300 […]