State Budget

Connecticut's transportation network is facing its own perfect storm of aging infrastructure, heavy usage and harsh weather conditions - all compounded by a slumping economy and shrinking government funding, according to a draft report from the state's Transportation Strategy Board.

The position paper outlining transportation needs, the first of four components that will ultimately comprise the board's 2011 update to its statewide transportation strategy, warns this confluence of bad conditions could require a major investment - despite the state's fiscal crisis - unless Connecticut wants to risk its economic future. Read more

Nearly one month into the new fiscal year, the legislative panel charged with identifying $50 million in cost-saving ideas still hasn't completed its work, Gov. M. Jodi Rell's administration wrote in a rebuke to the group's leaders.

The head of the Office of Policy and Management, the governor's budget agency, also reminded the Commission on Agency Outcomes that it had failed to meet its responsibility to find a much smaller savings package last fiscal year. Read more

When state legislators adopted a host of new tax and fee hikes last September, analysts estimated they would raise enough to cover about $700 million in projected revenue erosion tied to a slumping economy and provide another $250 million in extra funds to boot.

But with the final calculation on the 2009-10 fiscal year almost complete, nine of the 12 major tax categories in the General Fund fell short of their mark - including the two giants, income and sales, that provide over 80 percent of all General Fund tax dollars. Read more

State government is on pace to close the books on the last fiscal year $393.3 million in the black - $260 million higher than the surplus projected when the new budget was adopted in early May - Gov. M. Jodi Rell's administration reported today.

The latest surplus projection, which also stands about $150 million above the administration's estimate one month ago, stems from modest improvements in sales and insurance industry taxes and in revenue from licenses, permits and fees. Read more

Michael C. Fedele has no problem drawing a line in the fiscal sand.

For the Republican gubernatorial contender, the line is no higher taxes, no higher fees, and no additional borrowing. There are no loopholes.

Facing the budget: Last in a series.

But as certain as Fedele is in ruling things out, he isn't as decisive about how he would eliminate the $3.37 billion budget gap that will confront the next governor. Read more

As Connecticut struggles to control the cost of retirement benefits, one item under consideration may be a health insurance program generous by state government standards and rare in the private sector: discounted lifetime coverage of retirees and the spouses of retirees who log 10 years of service at any time in their careers.

A panel created by Gov. M. Jodi Rell to study the fiscal health of Connecticut's retirement benefit programs is expected to debate recommending an end this practice, along with new health care costs for future retirees, before it completes its first draft on Aug. 1. Read more

The Northwestern University study concluding that the pension funds of Connecticut and 19 other states will be broke by 2025 is fundamentally flawed, failing to account for future contributions to cover unfunded liabilities, according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. Read more

BRANFORD -- Democratic gubernatorial contender Dan Malloy wants Connecticut to upgrade its wastewater treatment plants, invest in public transportation, clean polluted sites and encourage alternative energy sources.

Those wants and wishes face the same obstacle as many of Malloy's other priorities:  the state budget deficit.

Malloy, who presented his environmental platform Tuesday in this coastal town with his running mate, state Comptroller Nancy Wyman, said the fiscal crisis shouldn't stop gubernatorial candidates from setting goals and defining their priorities on crucial issues.

"We need to kind of focus people's attention on the environment," he said during a mid-day press conference in front of a natural gas-fired, tri-generation plant that has provided Branford High School with heating, cooling and low-cost electricity for the past two years. "We wanted to speak in specific terms." Read more

Waging an independent campaign for governor, Tom Marsh doesn't have access to the funding, volunteers and other resources routinely available to major party candidates.

But the Chester first selectman, who abandoned his bid for the GOP nomination three months ago, said there's one advantage to not having to woo party insiders: He can tell voters the truth about the largest budget deficit in state history.

• Facing the budget: Fourth in a series

"You have to adhere to the party rhetoric in order to get the attention of the rabid followers, and that's who makes up the town committees," Marsh said in an interview last week. "I don't think the solutions to the state's problems are going to be found in either party's rhetoric, yet that's the system we have here." Read more