While the push to revitalize Connecticut will be a struggle, Gov.-elect Ned Lamont pledged to African-American leaders Saturday his administration’s effort would be defined by diversity and cooperation.
Toni E. Walker
Posted inEducation
Budget committee rejects Malloy’s plan to lock in DCF spending
The legislature’s budget-writing committee voted overwhelmingly Monday to recommend rejecting a plan being pushed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy that would lock the legislature indefinitely into a plan to spend at least $800 million yearly on the state’s child protection and foster care system.
Posted inEducation, Health, Money, Politics, Transportation
Walker: ‘Devastating’ cuts cannot solve CT’s budget woes
As analysts outlined a grim picture Wednesday that could include further cuts to state social services and reversing recent enhancements in local aid and transportation, one key lawmaker insisted officials must discuss raising revenue in 2017.
Posted inEducation, Money
State says thousands of children to lose day care subsidies
Updated at 1:50 p.m. Thursday
Thousands of children from low-income families will soon lose the state subsidy that helps them pay for daycare or preschool so their parents can work, the state Office of Early Childcare estimated Wednesday.
Posted inPolitics
It’s Ritter, Walker in contest for House majority leader
As House Speaker J. Brendan Sharkey, D-Hamden, publicly acknowledged his political retirement plans Sunday, the telephone scramble began by three House Democrats competing for two leadership jobs.
House Majority Leader Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, immediately confirmed he was running to succeed Sharkey as speaker, igniting a competition for his job between Matthew D. Ritter of Hartford and Toni E. Walker of New Haven.
Posted inEducation, Money
Taxing Yale: An attack or fair game?
While officials at Yale University call legislation that would implement a new tax on the growth of its endowment an “attack on independent higher education,” legislative heavyweights backing the bill say its just forcing the Ivy League school to be a good neighbor.
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 inEducation
Legislators press DCF: Do your juvenile jails work?
Fourteen months have passed since Jennie was violently taken down from behind as she walked from one end of the state-run jail for girls to the other. On Thursday, concerned lawmakers on the legislative panel that oversees juvenile justice wanted to know: Where is Jennie now, and how is she doing? And do the jails, which house juveniles convicted of a crime, improve their behavior after they leave?
Posted inEducation
Giving young offenders 2nd chance means system-wide reform
With a goal of reducing the number of young offenders incarcerated by 20 percent in three years, Connecticut will need to both prevent youths from entering the juvenile justice system and make sure they don’t return when they leave. Second of two articles.
Posted inEducation
A second chance for CT youths who break the law?
On any given day, about 160 young offenders are incarcerated in Connecticut’s juvenile jail or pre-trial detention centers. State officials want to substantially reduce that number, but first they have some obstacles to overcome. First of two articles.
Posted inEducation, Health, Money, Politics
House adopts controversial state budget
Connecticut’s long-running budget drama began drawing to a close early Wednesday as the House of Representatives adopted a $40.3 billion, two-year package that largely restores deep cuts to social services and expands municipal aid while bolstering tax revenues by almost $2 billion.
Posted inEducation
Aggressive charter school campaign descends on the Capitol
Legislators are being bombarded with emails informing them every time a student applies to a charter school that the state has yet to agree to fund. And when they turn on the television, they see advertisements warning that thousands of students will be trapped in failing schools unless state lawmakers spend millions more to expand enrollment in charter schools.
Posted inHealth, Money, Politics
House Democrats step off on long, difficult road to a state budget
Majority Democrats in the House of Representatives tried Tuesday afternoon to get their arms around the daunting deficits facing state finances. But after two hours behind closed doors, they left still trying.