Empty school desks and chairs were arranged on the steps of the U.S. District Courthouse in Bridgeport Tuesday for a press conference with parents of children who have been denied entry into magnet schools because of their race.
Connecticut remained dead last in the nation for personal income growth since 2007 in the latest analysis by Pew Charitable Trusts.
A financial stress test of all fifty states by Moody’s Analytics showed that Connecticut is unprepared should the country experience another recession - even a moderate one. Connecticut was one of the bottom 15 states that were “substantially unprepared” for an economic downturn, which would lower tax revenue and increase state service needs to help those affected by a recession.
There are only a few states that generally rank lower than Connecticut in terms of fiscal stability and outlook and New Jersey is usually one of them. Like Connecticut, New Jersey is saddled with high taxes, major pension problems and fiscal mismanagement, but a new study released by the Garden State Initiative uses Connecticut’s history of raising taxes to solve those problems as a “cautionary tale."
Recent news reports confirm what many have suspected for some time — young people are leaving Connecticut. How does this relate to pension debt? As a current graduate student who would like to stay in Connecticut after I finish school, I’ll explain. The state has accumulated billions of dollars of pension debt, and now it is trying to figure out how to pay that debt off.
The cost of building a rail line between New Haven and Springfield, Mass., continues to rise, even as transportation needs in Fairfield County go unmet. At its most recent meeting, the State Bond Commission approved another $155 million for the railway line connecting New Haven, Hartford and Western Massachusetts.