In This Together CT

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/115961-demonizing-the-public-sector-harms-the-middle-class

By Amy Traub     - 08/26/10 01:19 PM ET

The nation’s middle class is under attack. The recession hit private businesses and public budgets hard, but Americans’ ability to attain or hold onto a middle-class standard of living may be the ultimate victim. We’re losing jobs, losing services we depend on, losing pay and benefits. Yet instead of working to build up the middle class, a growing chorus of pundits insists that dragging down city and state workers across the country is the answer to our economic woes. Democratic mayors and governors fall for this ploy at their peril: it threatens the nation’s economic recovery, and feeds into conservatives’ anti-government, anti-worker agenda. (more…)

http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Connecticut-could-pay-New-York-for-cheaper-Metro-630477.php

Martin B. Cassidy, Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, August 25, 2010

PORT CHESTER, N.Y. — Metro-North Railroad riders at the town’s station said Tuesday they would consider buying tickets one stop up the line in Greenwich in order to skirt a possible fare increase next year.

Under a proposed increase included in a plan to make up an $800 million deficit for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Metro-North monthly fares from Port Chester and neighboring Rye stations would shoot from $226 to $247, surpassing the $237 price at Greenwich stations. (more…)

http://www.ctmirror.org/story/7448/us-announces-race-top-winners

Robert A. Frahm
August 24, 2010

Connecticut’s neighboring states of New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island are among 10 winners of the second round of the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top school reform competition.

Connecticut failed last month to make a list of 19 finalists for the Obama administration’s $4.3 billion competition designed to improve low-performing schools. (more…)

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/23/backdoor_privatization

Bit by bit, financial responsibility for some of the most important public services is being passed on to you

MONDAY, AUG 23, 2010 08:30 ET
BY ALYSSA BATTISTONI

It has come to this: Parents are now being asked to send their children to school with their own toilet paper. And not just toilet paper, but all sorts of basic items that schools themselves used to provide for kids. It’s all part of a disturbing trend, highlighted by the New York Times last week, of cash-strapped public schools — their budgets eviscerated by state cutbacks — shifting more and more financial responsibility onto parents. (more…)

http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/state_budget_already_63.4m_in_red/

by Christine Stuart
Aug 22, 2010 9:18pm

Rosy projections over how much revenue Connecticut would receive from the federal government has thrown budget projections $63.4 million into the red less then two months into the new fiscal year.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced the bad news Friday when her budget office released its monthly letter to state Comptroller Nancy Wyman. (more…)

http://www.truth-out.org/debt-democracy-and-paying-our-fair-share62501?print

Saturday 21 August 2010
by: Ellen Dannin
t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

It wasn’t that long ago that the “smart” thing was to take on debt. But not anymore. It’s no surprise that people today fear being crushed by debt. But for our own and our country’s well being, we need to put government debt into perspective. (more…)

http://www.ctmirror.org/story/7407/rell-official-would-tighten-retirement-benefits

Keith M. Phaneuf
August 20, 2010

Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s deputy budget director unveiled a new plan Thursday to shave $300 million off annual pension costs by boosting worker contribution rates, raising retirement ages and developing a new 401(k)-style retirement plan for new employees.

The proposals, offered to the governor’s Post Employment Benefits Commission, were part of a larger plan to stabilize the Connecticut’s severely under-funded pension program that also includes an end to retirement incentive programs and larger annual contributions by state government. (more…)

http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/rell_readies_transition_budget_pension_report/

by Christine Stuart
Aug 19, 2010 10:48pm

In addition to a $3.4 billion budget deficit, the next governor will have to contend with an unfunded pension liability and an even more daunting unfunded retirement benefit liability, but Gov. M. Jodi Rell said that she’s preparing a road map for her successor.

Rell’s transition budget, which is actually required to be presented to the governor-elect under Connecticut law, will include ideas she’s raised in the past such as agency consolidations, eliminations of boards and commissions, and other recommendations. (more…)

http://ctmirror.org/story/7380/lawmakers-say-restoring-funds-contracting-board-could-save-dollars

Keith M. Phaneuf
August 19, 2010

State government’s new contract watchdog agency is one of many that have faced budget cuts in recent years.

But key state lawmakers now are questioning whether the decision to effectively strip the Contracting Standards Board of all funding this fiscal year is costing more money than it’s saving. (more…)

http://www.tribunact.com/news/2010-08-18/News/The_race_is_on_Dan_Malloy_and_Tom_Foley_will_face_.html

August 18, 2010
By Emanuela P. Lima

In the recent Connecticut primaries, the war between publicly financed candidates to keep up with the spending of millionaires who finance their own campaigns was only overshadowed by the cloud of negative campaigning, which, in the end, resulted in more name recognition to the candidates it was intended to undermine. (more…)