Gov. Dannel P. Malloy proposed a $19.87 billion budget Wednesday that cuts most state agencies and previously approved municipal aid, and potentially eliminates “thousands” of jobs, while avoiding tax hikes to close a nearly $570 million deficit.
State Budget
Posted inMoney, Politics
Labor savings: The big unknown in Malloy’s new budget
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s new plan to cut agency budgets almost 6 percent relies heavily on cutting labor costs. His critics say it can’t be done by downsizing staffing alone, but also requires concessions. And labor union leaders decry both approaches.
Posted inHealth, Money
Advocates say social service, mental health cuts will hurt
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s proposed budget calls for cutting funding for mental health and substance abuse treatment, hospitals, community health centers, school-based health clinics, asthma treatment, respite programs for those who care for people with dementia – and more.
Posted inEducation, Money
Malloy: Shift health care, pension costs to universities
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s proposed budget would transfer the responsibility for health care, retirement and other fringe benefit costs for thousands of employees to the state’s public colleges and universities – a move college leaders have warned will probably result in a lot of red ink in their budgets.
Posted inPolitics
Text of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s 2016 State of the State
This is the text as prepared for delivery of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s address to the legislature.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Malloy’s budget speech to call for reforms, sustainability
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy intends to frame his budget proposal today as a reform of Connecticut’s much-maligned and unpredictable process of budgeting, as well as a blueprint for taming unsustainable spending. In excerpts released ahead of his noon speech, he also challenges legislators: “We can’t be opposed to tax increases, but unwilling to cut the spending those taxes support.”
Posted inMoney, Politics
New Malloy budget falls $720M below current-services level
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy would spend $720 million less than what’s necessary to maintain current services next fiscal year, but his new plan, due to the legislature Wednesday, won’t say how about 40 percent of that reduction would affect specific programs, according to an administration presentation.
Posted inMoney, Politics
GOP plan includes end to bargaining for state retirement benefits
Republican legislators offered a blueprint Monday to curb future state spending by, among other things, no longer guaranteeing worker retirement benefits by contract. The plan also would require several new concessions by state employees, restrict borrowing and overtime, and accelerate closure of the Connecticut Juvenile Training School.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Malloy to seek greater executive branch control over budget
After struggling to extract spending cuts from legislators last year, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy will propose a new state budget that gives departments much greater discretion to decide how their money is spent. Sources familiar with the governor’s 2016-17 budget proposal say it won’t assign agency funding to many specific programs, moving instead toward the block-grant system used for state colleges and universities.
Posted inMoney
Malloy promises ‘very austere’ state budget next week
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy warned Friday that the spending plan he will offer state legislators next week will be a “very austere” budget with no tax hikes. The Democratic governor, who needs to close a deficit projection topping $500 million in the preliminary budget for 2016-17, also all but ruled out use of the state’s modest emergency reserve.
Posted inMoney, Politics
After a few dodges, Malloy administration vows not to seek tax hikes
Updated at 2:12 p.m.
After some initial coyness about the state budget revisions Gov. Dannel P. Malloy must submit to legislators next week, the administration confirmed Tuesday afternoon it would neither propose nor support tax hikes.
Posted inMoney
Red ink awaiting CT lawmakers outstrips rainy day fund by almost $175M
The red ink legislators and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy must deal with beginning next week now outstrips Connecticut’s emergency reserves by almost $175 million, based on a new deficit forecast released late Monday.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Moody’s: GE’s departure ‘underscores’ Connecticut’s fiscal, economic woes
While the partisan debate over GE’s departure from Connecticut continues, a major Wall Street rating agency sees a correlation between the move and the state’s ongoing fiscal and economic woes. Moody’s Investors Service cited the impending move as it issued a “credit negative” — not a formal rating downgrade — but rather a public statement about a development that could harm Connecticut’s financial standing in the long run.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Eroding income tax receipts undo much of recent state budget repair
Eroding state income tax receipts have largely undone Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the legislature’s efforts to whittle down big budget deficits projected for each of the next three fiscal years, a new report showed late Friday.
Posted inMoney
Investing in business climate will be a tall order for CT
The challenge for state government, said economists and business leaders Wednesday, will be to find the resources to invest – in transportation, information technology and higher education – as the cost of public-sector retirement benefits spikes over the next decade to 15 years.