|
|
Watch live as Gov. Dannel P. Malloy delivers his budget address today to the General Assembly.
Members of Hearst CT newspapers’ editorial boards will be in the chat offering live analysis and answering readers’ questions before, during and after the speech.
During this morning’s media briefing on the proposed two-year state budget, a reporter asked Ben Barnes, Governor Dannel Malloy’s budget czar, how exactly the administration intends to obtain the $2 billion worth of proposed concessions from state workers.
The unions don’t, the reporter pointed out, have to open up their contracts.
After a few glances with Roy Occhiogrosso, Malloy’s chief advisor, Barnes replied, “The spending reductions the governor has proposed we intend to accomplish.”
A – skeptical? – chuckle rippled through the audience of reporters and lobbyists.
UPDATE: Malloy in his budget speech offered little more than Barnes. He said concessions are needed to avoid completely shredding the social service safety net and gutting Connecticut’s state workforce.
“There is no alternative. We have to get it done and I’m confident we will,” he said.
Last week I posted on my Political Capitol blog that new Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy, a longtime critic of the state’s formula for distributing education aid when Stamford’s mayor, would not be proposing changes to the Education Cost Sharing formula in his first budget.
His budget czar, Ben Barnes, just told members of the press during a budget briefing that the goal is to study the matter and come up with an ECS shake-up by 2012.
Fairfield County officials have long complained the ECS formula penalizes their wealth without taking into full account the challenges their school systems face.
“Unfortunately we have not been able to put such a formula together in five weeks,” Barnes said, referring to Malloy’s being sworn-in on January 5.
Barnes noted state officials for years have struggled over altering ECS.
UPDATE: Malloy during his budget speech provided more details. He said he will be forming a committee of legislators and relevant stakeholders and charge the group with issuing a report by October 1. He will then use that report to propose ECS legislation during the 2012 session.
“It’s broken and we all know it,” Malloy said, adding later, “We need to fix this formula once and for all. And we will.”
New Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy’s budget czar, Ben Barnes, is briefing those of us in the capitol press corps on the proposed two-year state budget.
Malloy will present his fiscal plan to the full General Assembly at noon.
Among Malloy’s proposals is phasing in the state’s vocational technical high schools as local schools.
“We believe that those local districts and regions are best equipped to manage those schools and we are embarking on a long term process that will not shift costs to local governments, but will shift control,” Barnes said.
The vocational technical school system got quite a bit of press in 2009 and 2010 in part because of ex-Republican Governor M. Jodi Rell’s and state school officials’ decision to shutter J.M. Wright Technical School in Stamford to help cut the budget. Legislative Democrats had wanted to keep the school open, but the 2009 budget battle dragged on too long and the decision was made prior to the start of the 2009/2010 school year to close.
That closure occurred in the final months of Malloy’s last term as mayor of Stamford.
A committee formed by the state to revitalize the school presented a plan to begin classes in 2014 following a renovation, with the first round of funds needed this fall.
It remains unclear what the Malloy administration’s plans are for Wright Tech, although the governor while on the campaign trail said it would be a priority if elected.
“It was wrong of the governor (Rell) to shut the school down, especially when the Legislature had already authorized its funding,” Malloy said.
There are three other vocational technical high schools in our Hearst media empire – one in Bridgeport, one in Milford and one in Danbury.
When Gov. Dannel P. Malloy delivers his budget address today to the General Assembly, we’ll have all the action covered live.
The coverage begins a half hour prior to the speech, when our live chat kicks off at 11:30. Members of Hearst CT newspapers’ editorial boards will be in the chat offering live analysis and answering readers’ questions before, during and after the speech.
We’ll also have live video of the speech, during which the first-year governor will detail plans regarding widespread tax increases and spending cuts.
Then after the speech, we’ll have blog posts and stories from reporters Ken Dixon and Brian Lockhart, complete with reaction from supporters and opponents alike.
In the meantime, check out the expansive budget coverage that ran in today’s print editions:
* How the governor’s budget will impact the average low-income family.
* How the budget will impact a middle-income family.
* How it will impact an upper-income family.
* The tax increases are likely to affect people in a wide array of businesses.
Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a prolific source of Tweets, is scheduled to headline a fundraising reception for the orthodox Jewish organization Chabad of Greenwich tonight at the Tamarack Country Club.
Tickets to the private reception start at $100 per person, with a $200 per person option for attendees to be photographed with Booker.
We’ll keep an eye on Booker’s Twitter feed.
Senate Armed Services Committee members, U.S. Sen John McCain (R-AZ) (L) listens as U.S. Sen Joe Lieberman (I-CT) speaks during a press conference on Gen. Stanley McChrystal and the war in Afghanistan on Capitol Hill on June 23, 2010 in Washington, DC. The senators were in support for President Barack Obama's decision to name U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus to replace McChrystal.
The Straight Talk Express and Joe-mentum will be reunited for tonight’s State of the Union address by President Obama.
Just days after John McCain suggested that Joe Lieberman would make a worthy candidate for secretary of defense, the Arizona Republican and self-proclaimed independent Democrat from Connecticut plan to sit together for tonight’s speech.
“Senator Lieberman will sit with Senators John McCain, R-Ariz., and Tom Udall, D-N.M., (one might call that “tri-partisan”),” said Erika Masonhall, Lieberman’s spokeswoman.
You’ll recall that Lieberman supported McCain for president in 2008 over Obama.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., plans to sit with fellow new kid on the block, U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H. You might recall that Blumenthal and Ayotte were among the first four senators to be sworn in on Jan. 5.
U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., doesn’t have plans to sit with anyone specifically at the moment.
Copyright © 2013 Hearst Communications Inc.
