Connecticut’s film tax credit, which has doled out more than $1.5 billion to Hollywood movie studios since 2007, lost millions last year, according to a new report.
The report by the state Department of Economic and Community Development shows that Connecticut’s Film and Digital Media Production Tax Credit broke even last year, while the fiscal impact of the tax breaks amounted to a net loss of $11.5 million.
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Connecticut cities and towns could save tens of millions of dollars a year in pension costs under a new proposal unveiled this week by state leaders.
The plan, rolled out Wednesday, emerged from a deal between Gov. Ned Lamont and State Comptroller Sean Scanlon to overhaul the Connecticut Municipal Employees Retirement System, a state-run pension system for municipal employees, including police officers, firefighters, and public works employees.
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Connecticut House Republicans have unveiled a two-year, $50.7 billion budget proposal that includes more than $1.1 billion in tax relief and repeal of a new highway tax on commercial truckers.
The plan, rolled out by the Assembly’s GOP minority caucus on Tuesday, includes a buffet of income tax cuts, tax relief of businesses and expanded tax exemptions for pension and annuity earnings, and restoration of a sales tax exemption on children’s clothing costing less than $100, among other changes.
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A Connecticut State Trooper won a settlement in his federal civil rights lawsuit against officials of the Connecticut State Police Union (CSPU) and Department of Emergency Services (DESPP), in which he charged them with illegally demoting him for his refusal to become a union member and to pay union dues to support CSPU’s political positions.
The trooper, Joseph Mercer, who was represented by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, settled the lawsuit for $260,500.
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Connecticut is receiving nearly $125 million this year as part of a nationwide tobacco settlement, according to Attorney General William Tong, who calls for increased spending on preventing youth smoking and vaping.
The money comes from a landmark 1998 settlement with tobacco companies, which calls for more than $246 billion to be funneled into states based on an annually adjusted rate per number of cigarettes sold each year. A portion of the funds are supposed to be put aside for smoking prevention and cessation programs.
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Connecticut’s natural gas customers have been “overcharged” more than $8 million, according to Attorney General William Tong, who calls on utility regulators to order consumer rebates.
Tong said a review of the most recent earnings report by Connecticut Natural Gas, which serves about 184,000 customers, shows the company has been earning 177 basis points above its authorized return on equity of 9.3%. He said that based on the report, the company’s rates “appear well beyond what is necessary to cover their expenses.”
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Connecticut’s public university system is facing the prospect of layoffs and deep cuts under the state budget proposal for the next fiscal year, which could also prompt tuition and fee hikes for students.
According to Connecticut State Colleges and Universities President Terrence Cheng, who announced on Monday the public college system would be forced to eliminate more than 3,600 full and part-time jobs — including 654 layoffs — under the two-year, $51 billion spending plan being considered by state lawmakers.
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A Connecticut bill that would have permitted physicians to assist patients to commit suicide and, its critics say, eliminated penalties for any person who may have pressured another individual to commit suicide using the legislation’s provisions, has died in committee.
The highly controversial legislation failed to pass the Judiciary Committee Wednesday, ending hopes for a floor vote, reported the Hartford Courant.
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Hillsdale College’s associate dean for its graduate school of government in Washington, DC, told attendees at an event Friday evening in Connecticut that while the enemies of religious liberty reject that which is divine in man, that concept is not “a Christian principle, per se,” but, in fact, “a rational principle.”
“In a certain sense, that can be summed up very simply, that we are actually children of God,” Dr. Matthew Mehan said at the College’s Blake Center for Faith and Freedom in Somers. “That is not a Christian principle, per se, although clearly it is one of the Christian principles. It’s actually a rational principle. And it’s actually a teaching of the philosophers and the poets both in ancient Greece and Rome.”
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Connecticut Democrats are moving ahead with a $51 billion two-year budget that includes more money for education, health care, and other priorities.
The spending plan, approved Wednesday by the Legislature’s Democratic-led Appropriations Committee, calls for boosting spending in the next fiscal year by an estimated $400 million over Gov. Ned Lamont’s preliminary budget, filed in February.
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Connecticut lawmakers are looking to provide more relief for middle-income pensioners as part of a broader tax package working its way through the legislative process.
The proposal, which is being considered by the Legislature’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee this week, would exempt more middle-income retirees in Connecticut from paying state taxes on earnings from pensions and annuities.
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Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas wants to borrow $25 million to update the state’s “unreliable” voting machines ahead of the 2024 presidential elections.
In recent testimony before the Legislature’s Committee on Finance, Revenue and Bonding, Thomas said her office is seeking authorization to purchase new ballot tabulators for cities and towns across the state. She said the machines have become “unreliable and unserviceable” with the company that produced them no longer in business.
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Connecticut’s embrace of early voting will make it more convenient for millions to cast a ballot, but comes with a hefty price tag for the state and local governments.
That’s according to a new report by the state’s Office of Fiscal Analysis, which determined the move could cost from $6.9 million to $9.2 million over the next several years, depending on how many days of early voting are offered.
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A federal watchdog agency has denied Connecticut-based Sikorsky Aircraft’s appeal of the U.S. Army’s rejection of the company’s bid to build the next generation of long-range assault helicopters.
Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, had filed a formal protest asking the U.S. Government Accountability Office to review the Army’s decision to reject their bid to produce its Defiant-X helicopter under a military contract.
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Connecticut and other states have seized shipments of illegal cigarettes from China and other countries under a settlement with the U.S. Postal Service to resolve claims it wasn’t doing enough to crack down on tobacco smuggling.
A new report by Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said between January and March the Postal Service seized 3,000 packages containing a total of 10,000 cartons of cigarettes shipped from overseas in violation of federal laws. Most of the illegal shipments were mailed from China, Israel and Russia, the AG’s office said.
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Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz (D) said she was “proud to be from Connecticut” as she appeared with four Democrat state lawmakers on Friday night’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race where four drag queens with ties to the Constitution State were present.
“I am joined today by our small but mighty LGBTQ+ caucus with one thing that we’d like to say: Hey, you, Amethyst, Robin, Loosey, Jax. You’ve made us all proud here in Connecticut,” Bysiewicz touted as she stood with Connecticut State Reps. Jeff Currey (D-East Hartford), Raghib Allie-Brennan (D-Bethel), Marcus Brown (D-Bridgeport), and Dominique Johnson (D-Norwalk).
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Hillsdale College’s Blake Center for Faith and Freedom in Somers, Connecticut, has received clearance from the town’s zoning commission to expand its offering of events and increase the number of people who attend them.
The executive director of the Blake Center, which is a replica of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, spoke with The Star News Network about the zoning commission’s unanimous approval of a modified special-use permit that will allow Hillsdale to increase the number of allowed guests at the center’s seminars and other events to 75.
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Connecticut lawmakers are advancing a climate change bill that critics say would give the state broad authority to raise gasoline taxes and take other aggressive steps to reduce tailpipe emissions.
The proposal, which was recently approved by the Legislature’s Environmental Committee, would empower the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to implement climate change policies aimed at helping Connecticut reach its goal of reducing greenhouse gases to 80% of 2001 levels by 2050.
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Connecticut lawmakers are advancing Gov. Ned Lamont’s proposal to close “loopholes” in the state’s gun control laws in response to a spate of mass shootings nationwide.
The legislation, which is teed up for a vote in the state Legislature, would tighten the state’s ban on “ghost” guns, increase the minimum age to buy a firearm to 21, prohibit open carry in public, ban the bulk purchase of handguns and expand the state’s restriction on large-capacity firearm magazines, among other changes.
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Connecticut lawmakers are taking aim at restrictive local zoning laws as part of a broader effort to address the state’s affordable housing crunch, but the move faces pushback from critics who say it would usurp local authority.
A proposal that’s being considered by the state Assembly would require cities and towns to conduct assessments on the need for affordable housing in their communities and come up with plans and zoning for a set number of units of affordable housing, based on the needs of the region.
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The Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, issued a statement Tuesday about its ongoing investigation into a possible Eucharistic miracle that was reported at St. Thomas Church in Thomaston earlier in March.
Rev. Joseph Crowley, pastor of St. Thomas, announced on March 5 after the distribution of Holy Communion that a lay eucharistic minister had witnessed a possible miracle when the vessel holding the hosts showed more hosts had appeared.
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Connecticut’s health care expenses increased by 6% to $34 billion in 2021, according to a new report, exceeding a goal set by Gov. Ned Lamont to limit the state’s cost growth.
The first annual Connecticut Healthcare Cost Growth Benchmark report said the state spent $34 billion on health care and insurance costs in 2021, up from $31.9 billion in 2019 and $30.9 billion in 2020. That’s higher than the 3.4% growth benchmark set by the Lamont administration three years ago.
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Connecticut trucks hundreds of thousands of tons of solid waste to landfills in other states, which costs the state and taxpayers millions of dollars a year.
Gov. Ned Lamont has pitched a plan to reduce the amount of waste going to other states by increasing recycling and requiring manufacturers to reduce packaging materials, but the effort has faced pushback from the solid waste industry and some lawmakers.
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Tens of thousands of Connecticut state workers will be getting bonuses after a labor arbiter awarded them more than $45 million in pandemic-related back pay.
The ruling by Arbitrator Susan Meredith, which must be approved by the Connecticut General Assembly, would provide bonuses from $250 to $2,834 for employees in high-risk jobs, which include police, firefighters and state-run nursing homes. Workers in lower-risk jobs would receive bonuses ranging from $125 to $1,417, under the ruling.
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A proposal to move Connecticut’s presidential primary date is being pushed by an unlikely alliance between leaders of the state’s two largest political parties.
The legislation, if approved, would change the state’s presidential primary date to the first Tuesday in April, which in the next nominating cycle would be April 2, 2024. Under the current law, the primary is held on the last Tuesday, which would be April 30, 2024 in the next cycle.
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Pro-life Connecticut activists gathered Wednesday in Hartford at the Capitol building for the second annual March for Life to celebrate life from conception to natural death and to demonstrate against more abortions that could come if two proposals are approved.
Despite the fact that Connecticut already has extremely liberal abortion laws, House Joint Resolution No. 8, introduced by State Rep. Keith Denning (D-Wilton), is a proposal for a constitutional amendment to protect the right to an abortion. The resolution would enshrine abortion in the state Constitution.
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Thousands of Connecticut residents attended the second annual March for Life Wednesday where they heard state Rep. Treneé McGee (D-West Haven) assert she is not an “anomaly,” since “one in three Democrats are pro-life and there are many black pro-life women across the world.”
McGee, who also addressed the tens of thousands of pro-life activists at the national March for Life in Washington, D.C. in January, urged her fellow Connecticut residents at the state Capitol in Hartford to help “create a culture of life.”
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Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont’s plan to control health care costs in the state is facing blowback over claims it would cost hospitals hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue.
Lamont’s proposal, which is being considered by the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Health, calls for reducing costs that often get tacked on to consumers’ medical bills, such as facility fees that charge patients for the use of medical and hospital offices during treatments, which he says would save the state’s consumers $400 million a year.
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Transgender Assistant Secretary for Health for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Rachel Levine recently praised the work of children’s hospitals, such as Connecticut Children’s Medical Center (CCMC) in Hartford, for their “gender-affirming care” clinics that provide children and teens with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and transgender surgeries, such as elective double mastectomies.
Levine (born Richard Levine) told a very welcoming audience at CCMC’s Pediatric Grand Rounds in February that “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex Americans, especially our youth … need our attention because they’re being attacked and … are attempting suicide at an alarming rate.”
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The Hendersonville Police Department reported Thursday that a Connecticut man had been taken into custody by the Connecticut State Police as the suspect for threats made against the Hendersonville Public Library, where its director Allan Morales was recently fired.
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Connecticut lawmakers are debating a plan that would offer property tax relief to senior citizens who agree to deed-restrict their homes as affordable housing.
The proposal, which cleared a key vote by the Legislature’s Housing Committee earlier this month, would allow seniors with household incomes of up to 80% of the area median income to “opt-in” to a program that deed-restricts their homes as affordable. In exchange, they wouldn’t be required to pay local property taxes.
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Connecticut lawmakers are pushing to repeal or scale back a new mileage tax on tractor trailers that went into effect earlier this year amid the threat of a legal challenge over the requirements.
The new law, which went into effect on Jan. 1, requires commercial truckers to pay rates ranging from 2.5 cents per mile for trucks with a gross weight of 26,000 pounds to 10 cents per mile for trucks weighing 80,000 pounds. Trucks weighing more than 80,000 pounds are slated to pay 17.5 cents per mile under the new regulations.
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Gender ideology and activities asking students about their favorite sex acts will be considered “age appropriate” in all Connecticut government schools if a bill mandating Comprehensive Sex Education is passed by the state legislature and signed into law, pro-family activists say.
Senate Bill 1 would mandate “comprehensive sex education that is age and developmentally appropriate and includes, but is not limited to, instruction about affirmative consent,” and would require the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) to recommend the curriculum for such “education.”
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Connecticut’s top law enforcement officer is taking aim at a rest stop operator with a legal challenge alleging it cheated food service workers out of wages they were owed.
The lawsuit, filed by Attorney General William Tong, claims plaza operator Food Project LLC owes workers at Dunkin Donuts, Subway and other rest stop businesses collectively more than $2.7 in lost wages for underpaying them under state labor laws.
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Connecticut has filed a lawsuit against several gun manufacturers, accusing them of violating state law by selling components that are used to build untraceable ‘ghost’ guns.
The civil lawsuit, announced by Attorney General William Tong Tuesday, targets four out-of-state firearm companies accusing them of violating the state’s consumer protection laws, which carry fines of up to $5,000 per violation.
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Connecticut lawmakers are considering a proposal that would authorize local governments to tax the endowments of private universities and colleges.
The proposal, which is pending before the Legislature’s Committee on Planning and Development, is the latest effort by Democratic lawmakers to tap into multi-billion dollar private endowments to divert more money to cities and towns that host sprawling private higher education campuses and facilities.
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Connecticut lawmakers are revisiting proposals that would authorize physicians to administer lethal doses of medicine to terminally ill patients.
A pair of bills being considered by the General Assembly would put Connecticut in line with Vermont, Maine and seven other states that have “death with dignity” statutes, also known as physician-assisted suicide or medical-aid-in-dying laws.
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A group of 30 New Jersey mayors are seeking a temporary moratorium on new wind power projects, citing a recent spike in whale deaths.
In a letter to President Joe Biden and New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, the mayors called for a suspension of wind power projects off the coast until federal and state governments conduct investigations to determine if activities are a “contributing factor in the recent whale deaths.”
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Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont has unveiled a raft of proposed health care reforms he says will cut medical costs and make care more affordable.
Lamont has filed a pair of bills that, if approved by the state Assembly, would ban the use of anti-competitive health care contracting practices, improve transparency in pricing for medical treatments, cap out-of-network insurance charges, and join a multi-state bulk purchasing program to lower prescription drug costs, among other changes.
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Connecticut’s top law-enforcement officer wants to be able to sue nursing homes to recoup taxpayer dollars when facilities are accused of harming patients.
A proposal being considered by the state’s General Assembly would, if approved, authorize the Attorney General’s office to conduct investigations and file civil lawsuits in cases where state health officials have issued orders that state or federal laws or regulations have been violated.
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SOMERS, Connecticut – Stanford University School of Medicine Professor Jay Bhattacharya, M.D. said in an interview with The Star News Network Friday that Americans “should be asking” whether diagnostic code data now being utilized to identify patients who were either never vaccinated or not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will be used “illegitimately.”
Bhattacharya responded to a question about the recent implementation in the United States of new International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) diagnostic codes that requires doctors at clinics and hospitals to ask patients about their COVID mRNA vaccination status.
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Connecticut lawmakers are considering a plan to scrap a controversial tax credit that has been criticized as a giveaway for big Hollywood movie studios.
A new proposal filed by several lawmakers would phase out the state’s film tax program, which doles out tens of millions of dollars each year in tax credits for movie and TV productions.
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Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont has signed a bill extending “guardrail” fiscal reforms that have been credited with helping turn the state’s once-troubled finances around.
The measure, which was approved by the state Legislature last week, will keep in place a raft of spending “guardrails” that were initially approved as part of the 2017 fiscal year budget for at least another five years.
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A group of Connecticut Democrat state representatives introduced legislation that would block teacher discussions with their students in the areas of race, gender identity, and sexuality from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Nicole Solas of the Independent Women’s Forum referred to the bill on Twitter as “state-sponsored grooming.”
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Gov. Ned Lamont and Connecticut’s legislative leaders have agreed to extend a raft of fiscal reforms that have been credited with helping turn the state’s finances around.
A compromise bill unanimously approved by the state General Assembly late Thursday commits the state government to keep in place several spending “guardrails,” which were approved as part of the 2017 fiscal year budget for at least another five years.
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Gun rights advocates are seeking to block Connecticut from enforcing a new federal rule that reclassified certain weapons as banned firearms under the state’s assault weapons ban.
A lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court by the Second Amendment Foundation on behalf of several gun owners, seeks a declaratory judgement that Connecticut’s laws banning the sale or possession of “assault weapons” violate the Second Amendment, and calls for a permanent injunction barring the state from enforcing the laws.
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Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont is pitching a plan to cut state income taxes for middle-class workers as part of his budget plan for the next fiscal year.
Lamont’s proposal, unveiled Monday, calls for permanently lowering the personal income tax rate on single filers’ first $10,000, and $20,000 for joint filers of adjusted gross income from 5% to 4.5%, and the rate on income up to $50,000, and $100,000 for joint filers from 3% to 2%, beginning in 2024. The move, if approved, is projected to save taxpayers $440 million annually.
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New York is being cautioned against raising taxes on its top earners as lawmakers consider plans to drum up more money from the state’s wealthiest.
A group of progressive Democratic state lawmakers have proposed a raft of tax reforms targeting New York’s ultra-rich that includes adding new tax brackets for the highest earners, increasing corporate taxes for the top companies, and setting wealth taxes on capital gains and inheritances.
Backers of the Invest in New York proposal say the package of reforms would drum up another $40 million to $50 million for the state’s education, housing and transportation needs.
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Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont is pitching a plan to tap into federal pandemic relief funds to “erase” an estimated $2 billion in medical debt owed by the state’s residents.
The plan, which will be included in Lamont’s preliminary two-year budget proposal to be unveiled next week, calls for using $20 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to hire a nonprofit organization that buys medical debt and eliminates it “at a fraction” of the original cost.
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Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont wants to tighten the state’s gun control laws to prevent mass shootings, but the move is facing pushback from Second Amendment groups which say it would be unconstitutional.
Lamont’s proposal, which will be unveiled as part of this preliminary budget proposal, calls for increasing the age to buy firearms to 21, closing “loopholes in the state’s assault weapons ban and prohibiting the sale of large-capacity firearm magazines.”
Lamont said the “commonsense” changes come in response to a spate of mass shootings nationwide. He said the state’s gun control laws have “not kept up with the innovative ways firearm companies are manufacturing guns that have the sole purpose of killing the largest number of humans within the shortest amount of time.”
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