The 3 percent pay raises that nearly 2,000 non-union state managers and appointed staff were expecting to begin receiving Friday have been canceled, the Malloy administration told state agency leaders Monday afternoon.
2016 State Budget
Posted inMoney, Politics
Malloy warns of workforce cuts, affirms opposition to tax hikes
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration confirmed Friday the downward trend in state revenues — though not the precise numbers — that nonpartisan analysts reported earlier this week. While the governor never used the word “layoff,” he told reporters Friday that state government’s workforce must shrink considerably soon, and that the next state budget still must be balanced without tax hikes.
Posted inMoney, Politics
CT finances take another big hit as projected revenues plunge
Connecticut’s finances were dealt a major blow Thursday when nonpartisan analysts downgraded projected income tax receipts by hundreds of millions of dollars for this fiscal year and next.
Posted inMoney
A governor’s search for fiscal ‘balance’ on the road
On Sunday night, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy was seated at a table with the president at the White House, where he is appreciated for pushing criminal justice reforms the Justice Department would like to implement on a broader scale. On Tuesday night, he was at a high school in New Haven, listening to complaints about the shrinking reach of state government.
Posted inEducation, Money, Politics
State budget panel sends mixed message on raises for UConn professionals
Despite huge looming state budget deficits, the legislature’s Appropriations Committee sent a mixed message Tuesday on a contract granting University of Connecticut non-teaching professionals annual raises ranging from 3 to 4.5 percent over the next five years.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Is a last-minute budget the only one sure to be balanced?
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy challenged legislators recently to break their bad habit of resolving the new state budget in the waning hours of the General Assembly session. But while legislative leaders recognized that last week as a laudable goal, they also said that — if recent history is any guide — an early finish could produce a budget that is unbalanced before the next fiscal year even begins.
Posted inEducation, Justice, Money, Politics
Judiciary says proposed cuts ‘compromise access to justice’
Cutting $64 million from the previously approved funding for the Judicial Branch next fiscal year would result in hundreds of layoffs and force closure of multiple courthouses and a juvenile detention facility, Judge Patrick L. Carroll III, chief court administrator, told the legislature’s Appropriations Committee.
Posted inEducation, Money
Clues to where Malloy’s commissioners might cut, if given the authority
Asked by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to give state agency leaders the authority to cut $360.8 million, state legislators are struggling to get a sense of which programs and services gubernatorial appointees would deem “pet projects” and target for reductions or elimination. “What I am trying to figure out when someone from a domestic violence shelter […]
Posted inHealth, Politics
Malloy seeks to cut legislative authority over Medicaid changes
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration is seeking to eliminate legislators’ authority over certain attempts to make changes to Medicaid and other federally funded assistance programs – an authority legislators recently used to block a controversial administration proposal.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Malloy turning bearish on the jobs recovery
MIDDLETOWN — Gov. Dannel P. Malloy was in the unfamiliar position Tuesday night of trying to persuade an audience that Connecticut’s glass is half-empty, its economic recovery rests too heavily on low-wage jobs and its citizens need to expect less from their government.
Posted inMoney
Nappier: Malloy’s budget doesn’t cover state’s credit card bill
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s new budget proposal could be $50 million to $74 million out of balance if state Treasurer Denise L. Nappier and the legislature’s nonpartisan analysts are correct about what Connecticut owes on its credit card.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Small towns’ forum offers preview of ’16 legislative campaign
State legislative leaders may have offered a preview Tuesday of this fall’s election themes as they battled before the leaders of Connecticut’s small towns.
Posted inEducation
Cutting DCF: Right-sizing or wrong-headed?
The Department of Children and Families says it has been able to absorb large budget cuts and better serve vulnerable children by placing more of them with family members and fewer with strangers in expensive group homes. But critics say the agency hasn’t been allowed to redirect enough of those savings into community support to improve outcomes. And more cuts loom.
Posted inMoney, Politics
‘Imperfect’ Malloy asks for understanding on budget
STAMFORD – In the first of a series of open-ended town hall meetings, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy stood his ground Thursday on his intention to make deep spending cuts. But the governor did so in a tone more plaintive than combative, suggesting in his sixth year in office he was humbled by the fiscal challenges. He called himself an “imperfect governor.”
Posted inEducation
AFT’s Weingarten: Malloy budget ‘really horrible’ for education
Randi Weingarten, the leader of one of the nation’s largest labor unions, came to an inner-city school in Hartford Thursday to lambaste the budget cuts proposed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat she helped re-elect in 2014.