Gov. Lamont is using his first budget to start a conversation, rather than drive specific solutions, about a host of key issues ranging from tolls and sports betting to recreational marijuana and labor cost-savings.
State Budget
Posted inPolitics
It may be bumpy, but Lamont sees ‘a path forward’
Gov. Ned Lamont offered lawmakers Wednesday what he says is a map for a wealthy state struggling to wriggle free of a crushing pension debt amassed over decades, end crippling cycles of deficits and spark economic growth.
Posted inHealth
Lamont’s health budget vs Connecticut hospitals
Gov. Ned Lamont’s new budget replaces a previously approved tax cut for hospitals with a $43 million tax hike.
Posted inEducation
See how your town fares in the governor’s proposed budget
Poor communities would gain the most through a redistribution of the Education Cost Sharing ESC) grant, while wealthy towns would lose the most.
Posted inMoney
Lamont budget takes the first step toward tolls
Gov. Ned Lamont used his first budget Wednesday to lay the groundwork for the restoration of tolls to Connecticut highways.
Posted inMoney
Lamont presents $43 billion, two-year plan to legislators
The two-year state budget lays the groundwork for tolls, shifts more pension debt onto future taxpayers, deals another blow to hospitals, but closes a multi-billion dollar shortfall without raising the income tax.
Posted inMoney
Will Lamont keep transportation system afloat until toll receipts arrive?
Timing is everything. The governor wants to use tolls to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild Connecticut’s transportation infrastructure in a few years at the same time he plans to cut borrowing now.
Posted inMoney
A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
At least that’s what Gov. Lamont hopes as he prepares to offset tolls and sin taxes with lower property taxes on cars and other budget sweeteners.
Posted inMoney
Tax on sugary drinks tops Lamont’s list of new ‘sin taxes’
Gov. Ned Lamont’s first budget will include a series of new “sin tax” proposals, including levies on sugary drinks, electronic cigarettes and plastic bags, and deposits on alcoholic beverages.
Posted inMoney
Lamont hopes spending cap will protect CT’s piggy bank
Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont has an ally in his fight to protect Connecticut’s growing budget reserves — a new Republican-crafted spending cap.
Posted inMoney
Lamont tells CT to expect lean spending, sales tax expansion
Gov. Ned Lamont asked Connecticut residents Monday to brace for a lean spending plan that overhauls service delivery, restructures pension debt and broadens the sales tax.
Posted inMoney
Budget chief treads carefully in first meeting with lawmakers
Gov. Ned Lamont’s new budget director, Melissa McCaw, deftly maneuvered through a series of political landmines Tuesday in one of her first appearance before the General Assembly.
Posted inMoney
CT’s legacy of debt was Malloy’s ultimate challenge
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy would be hounded by the debt-riddled state finances he inherited, pension obligations that would force deficits and tax hikes while leaching dollars from transportation and other programs. But Malloy also would be the first governor in modern history not to saddle future generations with pension costs owed during his administration.
Posted inMoney
State’s next budget director brings straight talk and solutions
Connecticut’s new secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, Melissa McCaw, must help Gov.-elect Ned Lamont craft a long-term solution to a state fiscal crisis seven decades in the making. It’s a challenge she relishes, and that for which many say she is particularly well-suited.
Posted inMoney
Advocates warn fiscal caps could tighten on social services, local aid
Social services advocates warned Thursday that a series of new caps in the state budget could dramatically drain resources away from municipalities, education and services for children over the next decade.