Digging into public financing: From clerical errors to cash for constituents

With state aid to towns stagnant at best for the near future, a panel of 46 Democratic state lawmakers proposed Wednesday to increase the hotel tax in the state from 12 to 15 percent and give the revenue to cash-strapped towns. The estimated $20 million in annual revenue the tax increase would generate would help […]

Gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley Gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley distanced himself today from fellow Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell, saying he does not support her Keno gambling proposal or her proposal to use $100 million of state dollars to lend to small businesses. The Greenwich businessman also criticized Rell, whom he called a good friend, for allowing the […]

The lineup promised fireworks: Linda McMahon, a WWE executive who has acted in wrestling melodramas; Peter Schiff, a CNBC pundit with a rabid following; and Rob Simmons, a former congressman, soldier and spy. But for 60 minutes Tuesday, constrained by a televised debate format that discouraged confrontation, the three Republican U.S. Senate candidates found agreement […]

Officials from Connecticut’s two casinos said Tuesday that the Rell administration’s proposal to launch a Keno game would violate their exclusive rights to operate “casino games” in the state and jeopardize a revenue-sharing compact that means millions of dollars to the state each year. But state officials say Foxwoods and and the Mohegan Sun thought […]

Magnet schools, charter schools and technical schools all have become popular options for many Connecticut families, but those schools rely on a financial structure that is “broken, unfair, and inadequately funded,” says the state’s top education official. State Education Commissioner Mark McQuillan will ask the State Board of Education today to find ways to fix […]

Legislative leaders were lukewarm at best Tuesday in their reception of Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s latest deficit mitigation plan, but they were even vaguer about when – or even if – they would adopt any plans to erase state government’s deficit before the regular General Assembly session ends on May 5. “We’re intending to pass […]

Connecticut’s hospitals are wary of Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s plan to reinstate a 10-year-old tax on revenues, rejecting the administration’s claim that overall payments to the industry would remain constant, although individual hospitals would experience gains or losses. An official with the Connecticut Hospital Association also said that numerous spending cuts also proposed in the […]

Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s latest deficit-mitigation plan would take $12 million from the Citizens’ Election Program, possibly leaving the system of publicly financing campaigns with insufficient funds for the 2010 elections, advocates said Tuesday. Surprised legislators said Rell’s proposal to take money from the fund undermines efforts by an administration-led working group to formulate changes […]

Officials from Connecticut’s two casinos testified today that if the state allows Keno gambling it will be in violation of its revenue-sharing compact with the Indian tribes that run the casinos. The state receives almost $400 million a year from the slot machines at Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos. Jackson King, counsel for Foxwoods, said […]

Connecticut has joined 16 other states in a national alliance to reverse a discouraging downward trend in the percentage of young people earning college degrees, Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced today. The states have joined Complete College America, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that will assist states in setting goals for graduation rates, monitoring progress, […]

Town leaders told the Appropriations Committee today that the state is making it difficult for them to function because town aid is flat funded and towns are limited to levying a tax only on property. “Local cost cutting alone cannot counteract the state funding. Connecticut is one of only 15 states that handcuffs municipalities to […]

At a televised U.S. Senate debate Monday night, Merrick Alpert took the stage as an underdog trying to hook Democratic primary voters with calls for universal health care, diplomatic relations with Cuba and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, already ordained by pollsters and party regulars as the Democratic candidate-in-waiting, responded with […]

After repeatedly declaring that more taxes won’t solve the state’s budget problems, Gov. M. Jodi Rell Monday proposed reinstating a tax on hospital earnings as well as raiding the next fiscal year’s revenues as part of a plan to close a half-billion-dollar budget shortfall. Rell’s second deficit mitigation plan of 2009-2010 would strip nearly $220 […]