Gov. Malloy delivering his State of the State Address. (Photography by Uma Ramiah)
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy used a televised State of the State address Wednesday to jump into the thicket of teacher tenure reform, a popular issue with voters, yet fraught with pitfalls for a Democrat narrowly elected with the support of organized labor. The issue is this year's cause for a governor intent on setting the agenda.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is calling on legislators to completely change how the state's 45,000 teachers earn tenure by linking teachers' job security to student performance and teacher evaluations.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy asked state legislators today to send an additional $50 million to school districts, a move that advocates say will cover a portion of what the state owes them.
'If the economy even burps right now, we could end up in a deterioration' of the fiscal picture, said John Rathgeber, CBIA CEO.
A year after building the largest fiscal security blanket in more than two decades of state budgets, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy moved onto the fiscal high wire without a net.
Malloy spoke decisively Wednesday about finding spending cuts to keep his $20.7 billion plan for 2012-13 in balance, but lawmakers and the state's chief business lobby balked at the plan's barely visible margin for error.
Ben Barnes, secretary of the state Office of Policy and Budget.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy unveiled a revised, $20.73 billion budget plan for the next fiscal year, adding nearly $330 million in spending over the preliminary budget, largely to fund additional education aid for towns and to bolster the state employees' pension fund.
The health and human services portions of Malloy's proposed budget adjustments include money to support an effort to move people out of nursing homes, add three childhood vaccines to the state's program and offer the first funding boost in five years to private human services providers.
The administration also intends to move ahead with plans to seek permission from the federal government to add enrollment restrictions and scale back benefits in a Medicaid program for low-income adults without minor children, a move that has drawn criticism from advocates and some key lawmakers.
Elissa Maillet is a teacher in training who would benefit from Malloy's higher standards.
Elissa Maillet worries she's not going to be able to get a teaching job when she graduates from Central Connecticut State University in two years, but the sophomore with a 3.6 GPA is positioned to profit from higher teacher standards proposed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
If Malloy succeeds, the pool of her would-be competitors for jobs will get smaller.
DSS Commissioner Roderick Bremby: He needs retirees to keep old computers running.
After recent retirements, the state Department of Social Services is relying on retirees hired back through a vendor for information technology work -- so much so that the commissioner has warned that a potential ethics opinion discouraging the practice could lead to "a threat to public health, safety and welfare."
Hartford Superintendent Christina Kishimoto said the district is helping some charters, but can't afford to help all of them.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is proposing a 30 percent increase per student in charter school funding and the opening of five new charter schools.
Whatever new initiatives Gov. Dannel P. Malloy unveils Wednesday in his revised budget for the next fiscal year, he likely won't be asking for much extra staffing to carry them out.
Excerpts from Gov. Malloy's State of the State Address:
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THE MINIMUM WAGE
Connecticut's hourly minimum wage of $8.25 is one of the highest in the nation, trailing Washington at $9.04, Oregon at $8.80 and Vermont at $8.46.
Five of the six New England states exceed the federal minimum of $7.25. The exception is New Hampshire, whose minimum is the same as the feds.
Connecticut is one of 18 states with a minimum higher than the federal standard. Twenty-thrree are at the federal level, four are below it and five have no minimum wage.
Ten states have a minimum wage indexed to the cost of living.
Source: U.S. Department of Labor
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