The town of Farmington, population 26,000, will vote Thursday on a school construction project that has sparked debate with its price tag of $135 million. The plan to construct an entirely new high school will take four years to complete but Connecticut’s dire fiscal situation has some town officials and members of the public concerned about the scope and size of the project.
When Joshua Hall left his teaching position at Hartford's Weaver High School in 2008 to work for the Hartford Federation of Teachers, he didn't give up his salary. Instead, Hartford schools continued to pay him as vice president of the union, with the union only partially reimbursing the schools. The practice of Connecticut's near-bankrupt capital city paying union workers attracted little notice until April when Hall won a seat in the state house by special election as a member of the Working Families Party.
Only 34 percent of Connecticut’s teachers will work until they reach retirement age and get the full value of their pension, according to a new study released by Education Next, a education journal produced by the Hoover Institution. Of new teachers starting out in education, only 55 percent will actually stay in the job for a full 10 years so they are vested in the pension plan.
A newly released report from state auditors begs the question: What is going on at the Connecticut Department of Education? Particularly egregious was the discovery that over 100 students – particularly athletes and academic high achievers – were being admitted to Hartford’s most prestigious magnet school without going through the lottery process.
Connecticut’s teacher pension fund leaves more questions than answers for both taxpayers and teachers, according to a study by the National Council on Teacher Quality. The report showed that despite the praise often heaped on teacher pension plans, they are becoming more costly to teachers, less flexible and ultimately unsustainable.
The University of Connecticut paid one dozen employees large settlements - many over $100,000 - to get them to resign and keep quiet about their time in state government, according to state auditors. Other agencies participated in the practice, too, although less frequently. The Auditors of Public Accounts faulted the practice because the agreements lacked oversight from the governor or attorney general as required by law and keeps potential whistleblowers from speaking out.