By Keith M. Phaneuf

UPDATE Gov. Dannel P. Malloy today unveiled a plan to ease mandates on cities and towns, led by elimination of a controversial cap on local budgets.

The governor, who is expected next week to recommend a major realignment of aid from wealthier to poorer communities, also proposed: changes to collective bargaining, tightening of prevailing wage standards, granting more flexibility in local property assessment rates and eliminating a requirement for a superintendent in small school districts.

“True partnerships are built on listening to the concerns and responding to the needs of the other party,” Malloy said. “Given the challenges we face in balancing the budget in the next biennium, the state and local municipalities must continue to strengthen our working partnership — and in some respects, begin to redefine this relationship.”

Local cities and towns have complained loudly over the past two years since the legislature established a cap system, with financial penalties when local spending exceeds certain limits.

By Keith M. Phaneuf

www.ctmirror.org

Connecticut stands on the cusp of an unprecedented fiscal crisis.

The budget that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy will present to the legislature Feb. 8, in an attempt to close $3 billion in deficits over the next two years, is only a portent of a far greater, long-term challenge facing the state.

Simply, the bill is coming due in ever-increasing amounts for the 80-year failure of one of the richest states in the nation to adequately save for retirement benefits promised to teachers and state employees.

Hobbled by debts accumulated by generations of governors and legislators, Connecticut for at least 15 years to come is likely to face a bleak and politically dangerous menu of options that could shape the state’s economy and quality of life.

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By Keith M. Phaneuf

Connecticut’s cities and towns today unveiled a sweeping financial plan that included a major sales tax boost to aid communities, new regionalization incentives and collective bargaining changes.

Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin today at CCM’s news conference in Wethersfield. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Keith M. Phaneuf for CTMirror.org

The bargaining changes would be designed to ensure new revenue for towns would not be used to boost wages and benefits for municipal workers.

And while the plan the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM) unveiled in Wethersfield was aimed at communities of all sizes, Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin predicted this approach would enable the capital city to avoid insolvency and would boost struggling urban centers statewide.

The proposal could place Democrats in the General Assembly in a political quandary, leaving them caught between public-sector labor — a strong part of their political base — and a long-established priority of easing property-tax burdens.

By Ana Radelat

Washington — Introduced by the two senators who crushed her political hopes in Connecticut, Linda McMahon today sailed through a confirmation hearing, placing her a step closer to becoming the next head of the Small Business Administration.

Linda McMahon after her confirmation hearing today.  (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Ana Radelat for CTMirror.org

Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, who both ran against McMahon to win their seats in the Senate, praised McMahon, the founder with her husband Vincent of the World Wrestling Federation, now the WWE, as a savvy businesswoman who would bring good policy and judgment to the Trump administration.

At her hearing before the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, Murphy introduced McMahon as “a fellow Nutmegger.”

“This visual is going to be a little amusing and surprising to folks in Connecticut, who saw the three of us duke it out during two long Senate campaigns, but politics can’t work if political grudges never die,” Murphy said.