Budget deal restores some social services cuts, leaves others

The budget agreed to by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Democratic legislators restores funding to several health and social services programs that the governor initially proposed trimming. But it also leaves in place other cuts that advocates have decried and relies on higher assumed Medicaid savings than the governor’s original proposal. Out are plans to […]

After stepping down following a tumultuous year, former Connecticut State University System Chancellor David Carter this week paid a $2,000 fine for an ethics violation involving the hiring of his wife for a $26,903 part-time job during a hiring freeze. A stipulation and consent order says Carter failed to disclose his financial interest in the […]

WASHINGTON–The decibel level in the debate over raising the nation’s debt limit got a lot higher this week, after Standard & Poor’s rating agency lowered America’s credit outlook and the markets rippled in reaction. Connecticut lawmakers, with one exception, say that Congress should vote to hike the debt ceiling, with no strings attached. They’re not […]

Even as Congress slices $38 billion from the current year’s budget and gears up to slash hundreds of billions more from the next, some programs seem impervious to cuts, David A. Fahrenthold says at the Washington Post. He cites four: One spends federal money to store cotton bales. Another offers scholars a chance to study […]

For the first three months of the 112th Congress, freshman Sen. Richard Blumenthal and his staff have had to work out of a dim, no-frills temporary office in the basement of the Senate’s Dirksen Building. But today, the Democratic lawmaker moved up-literally. Blumenthal’s staff spent Wednesday moving and today settling in to spacious new digs […]

A revised budget unveiled Wednesday by Democratic legislative leaders and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy restores an array of popular middle-class sales tax exemptions, while increasing inheritance taxes and a levy on expensive cars, boats and jewelry. The revisions, which would trim Malloy’s $1.5 billion tax increase by $116 million and make modest shifts in spending, […]

The Malloy administration and Democratic legislative leaders have reached an agreement on the proposed SustiNet state-run health plan, with a deal that calls for opening the state employee health plan to municipalities and some nonprofits, but not for offering insurance to the public. The agreement would also establish a “SustiNet cabinet” advisory panel within the […]

With a budget agreement in hand, legislative leaders are considering having the General Assembly vote on the tax-and-spending plan without waiting to see if Gov. Dannel P. Malloy succeeds in obtaining the $1 billion in labor savings he is seeking from state employees. A quick vote would leave Malloy with the responsibility for obtaining sufficient […]

Advocates for seniors are fighting a proposal by the Malloy administration that aims to save close to $30 million a year by reducing the amount of assets a person can keep if his or her spouse is in a nursing home and receiving Medicaid coverage. They say the proposal, which would reverse a change made […]

MERIDEN — It is one area where state employee unions and Republicans agree: The ranks of state managers need to be sharply cut. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said today those reductions are coming, but they will not be reflected until the second year of his two-year budget. “There are lots of assumptions built into the […]

The barriers state residents face in reaching the state Department of Social Services are unacceptable, and the options they have for accessing services are “woefully inadequate,” incoming commissioner Roderick L. Bremby told lawmakers at his confirmation hearing. Department workers want to improve the situation, he said, but they’re limited by an obsolete phone system and […]

Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, has renewed his push to fix a quirk in the Medicare rules–one that has cost elderly patients thousands of dollars, not to mention considerable stress. Courtney’s efforts began after he was approached by a constituent, Nancy Renshaw, who got stuck with a nearly $10,000 nursing home bill for her father-in-law […]

Support for same-sex marriage seems to have been increasing at an accelerated pace over the past few years, Nate Silver says at the NY Time’s FiveThirtyEight.com, with opponents now in the minority. Tracking dozens of polls going back to 1988–when less than 15 percent said they supported gay marriage–Silver estimates that 50 percent of Americans […]