The CT Mirror (https://ctmirror.org/tag/toni-e-walker/)
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. Continue Reading →
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. Continue Reading →
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. Continue Reading →
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. Continue Reading →
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. Continue Reading →
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 calls me and says, ‘Did I get cut? Did I not get cut?’ I have to say I don’t know. Cause I can’t figure it out,” Rep. Toni Walker, D-New Haven, the House chairwoman of the legislature’s powerful budget-writing committee, told the commissioner of the Department of Social Services last week. Continue Reading →
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? Continue Reading →
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. Continue Reading →
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. Continue Reading →
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. Continue Reading →
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. Continue Reading →
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.
Continue Reading →