As lawmakers continue to try to avoid a government shutdown on Sunday, members of both parties, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., are working to make sure members of the military — and, in particular, the U.S. Coast Guard — are not left out.

Active duty military and some federal civilian employees are required to work during a government shutdown. And unless Congress intervenes, they would work this time without getting a paycheck and only receive back pay once the government is funded.

But at times in the past, the Coast Guard has been excluded from the same protections as the rest of the military branches because they fall under different government agencies.

If a shutdown occurs on Sunday, service members who still need to report for duty could go days — or even weeks — without income.

Consensus to keep the government open in the short term is looking increasingly unlikely, and Congress has little time to address it before funding runs out by the end of Saturday. House Republicans on Friday failed to pass their own bill to fund the government through Oct. 31 after nearly two dozen GOP members opposed it.

Meanwhile, the Senate looks poised to pass a bipartisan proposal to keep things running through mid-November. But it is unclear if Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., would bring it up for a vote in the House.

A government shutdown would have a ripple effect across Connecticut and the U.S., ranging from furloughs in the federal workforce to potential reductions in services related to nutrition assistance, education and food safety.

[RELATED: How would a government shutdown affect CT? It depends]

And it could have an “outsized” effect in Connecticut given that the state has a larger proportion of veterans and defense production, according to Blumenthal. The state is home to major defense contractors working with the U.S. military as well as the Naval Submarine Base New London and Coast Guard Academy.

Unlike the rest of the military branches that report to the U.S. Department of Defense, the Coast Guard falls under the purview of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Those differences played out in the last government shutdown, which spanned over a month from late December 2018 to early January 2019. Since Congress passed a defense budget at the time, most of the military was paid during the shutdown. But with no funding for Homeland Security, the Coast Guard went without pay.

For many Coast Guard families who live paycheck to paycheck, they need income to cover their rent, mortgages, food, car payments and child care. Because they went without pay a few years ago, many relied on food pantries and other donations.

But since none of the 12 appropriations bills to fund government agencies have fully passed Congress this time, it is likely all of the military would forgo paychecks while working.

Before previous shutdowns, Congress has passed provisions to ensure that the military still gets paid. There are various bills from lawmakers in both parties to do that — and to specifically include the Coast Guard — but their status is unclear heading into the shutdown deadline. Some Republicans tried last week to pass such legislation, but Democrats blocked it, arguing they would rather focus on efforts to avoid a shutdown.

Bipartisan legislation, called the Pay Our Coast Guard Act, would seek to ensure there is parity within the military. Blumenthal is co-sponsoring a bill recently introduced that requires Coast Guard service members to get the same protections and pay as other military branches during and after a shutdown. The bill has the backing of Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Ranking Member Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

Connecticut has more than 6,000 members on active duty, according to June data compiled by the Defense Manpower Data Center, which does not include numbers on those in the Army. Of those, 719 are serving on active duty in the Coast Guard. Another 162 are in the Coast Guard Reserve.

“When we’re talking about our military, our FBI, our Customs and Border Patrol, the pay will be potentially long after they actually serve and do the work, and that has really deep and devastating human consequences,” Blumenthal told reporters Friday on a call.

“My hope is this will give our Coast Guard the certainty and security knowing they’re going to be treated the same way as other services by giving them back pay in exactly the same way,” Blumenthal said later in an interview. “I agree we should not be delaying pay [for the military]. That’s a really important truth here.”

While lawmakers in Connecticut raised the importance of paying the military during a shutdown, some shared concerns about deciding which federal employees should get that carveout. They are instead currently focused on passing the short-term bill known as a continuing resolution to avoid halting the pay of any federal worker.

“It’s really difficult to decide which workers should get paid during a shutdown and which shouldn’t,” Murphy told reporters on Friday, echoing a similar point made this week by Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District. “That would obviously be very important, but it’s hard to decide that our military service members should be paid but our border patrol agents shouldn’t be paid.”

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to waste time trying to make sure that certain employees get paid when you could easily just move forward on the bipartisan bill that’s going to pass the Senate to keep the government open and operating,” he added.

Murphy and Blumenthal also highlighted another class of workers whose pay would be unprotected during a shutdown: government contractors.

There is a statute requiring all federal employees to get back pay when they return to work after a shutdown. But contractors are excluded. The ones most at risk of a pay stoppage are lower-paid contractors who work in food and cleaning services for federal agencies — many who cannot afford to keep working without a paycheck.

Some may still get paid throughout a shutdown depending on how the federal contract and funding for it is structured. Otherwise, Murphy noted that getting compensated is at the discretion of their employer.

“In Connecticut, we have a lot of federal contractors, a lot of military contractors whose companies are not going to be reimbursed during the shutdown, and many of those companies will choose not to provide back pay to their employees,” Murphy said.

Major defense contractors in Connecticut like Electric Boat, Sikorsky and Pratt & Whitney have billions of dollars worth in federal contracts with military branches like the Navy and Air Force. It is not immediately clear, however, if or how those contracts and their workforce would be affected by a shutdown.

But Murphy highlighted the uncertainty for Connecticut’s defense industry, including the Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton.

“It’s important to note, especially in a state … that relies greatly on the defense industrial base, a state that has a lot of contractors in and around southeastern Connecticut, the federal employees will be made whole,” Murphy said. “But there’s no guarantee that people who are working for contractors, on the sub base for instance, are going to get paid at the end of this shutdown.”

Thousands of federal employees, active duty military and civilian defense personnel in Connecticut could stop getting paid if Congress does not fund the federal government before Oct. 1.

The most immediate consequences of a shutdown for Connecticut and the U.S. would be furloughs of federal employees who work for various government agencies. Some workers, however, are considered “excepted,” like the military and most air traffic controllers. But whether or not they work during a shutdown, none of them would get paychecks and would receive back pay only after government funding resumes.

Connecticut has more than 8,400 federal workers who mostly work for Cabinet-level agencies as well as at large independent agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Small Business Administration, according to data from March compiled by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The number grows when including government contractors.

Nearly half of Connecticut employees who serve in Cabinet agencies work for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. And more than a third work for defense-related agencies like the Pentagon, the Navy, the Army and the Air Force, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, which has jurisdiction over the Coast Guard.

In addition to civilian personnel working with the Pentagon, Connecticut has more than 6,000 members on active duty, according to data compiled by the Defense Manpower Data Center. The data does not include those who serve in the Army. Those on active duty would work without pay until the end of the shutdown.

While many federal workers would face furloughs, some would continue their jobs like the military, border security and air traffic controllers and U.S. Transportation Security Administration agents. Regardless of their employment status, none of those workers would get paid and would only receive back pay once government funding resumes.

Read more: How would a government shutdown affect CT? It depends

Connecticut politicians are paying tribute to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who died Thursday night.

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy said Feinstein, the oldest sitting U.S. senator, paved the way for the modern anti-gun violence movement.

“For a long time, between 1994 and the tragedy in Newtown in 2012, Dianne was often a lonely but unwavering voice on the issue of gun violence,” Murphy said in a statement. “We all grieve this tremendous loss.”

Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said he’ll remember Feinstein as “a smart, strong leader and legislator as well as a thoughtful, sweet friend.”

“I was proud to work with Senator Feinstein on issues that she championed tirelessly over decades, like gun violence prevention and civil liberties protection – she never backed down,” Blumenthal said in a statement.

Feinstein, a centrist Democrat, was elected to the Senate in 1992 and broke gender barriers throughout her long career in politics. She was 90.

Feinstein was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969 and became its first female president in 1978, the same year Mayor George Moscone was gunned down alongside Supervisor Harvey Milk at City Hall by Dan White, a disgruntled former supervisor.

Feinstein found Milk’s body, her finger slipping into a bullet hole as she felt for a pulse. It was a story she would retell often in the years ahead as she pushed for stricter gun control measures.

One of Feinstein’s most significant legislative accomplishments was early in her career, when the Senate approved her amendment to ban manufacturing and sales of certain types of assault weapons as part of a crime bill that President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1994. Though the assault weapons ban expired 10 years later and was never renewed or replaced, it was a poignant win after her early career had been significantly shaped by gun violence.

“She never faltered in her efforts to pass comprehensive gun control legislation to make our communities safer,” said U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. in a statement.

Feinstein had little patience for Republicans and others who opposed her views on guns, though she was often challenged. In 1993, during debate on the assault weapons ban, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, accused her of having an insufficient knowledge of guns and the gun control issue.

Feinstein spoke fiercely of the violence she’d lived through in San Francisco and retorted: ”Senator, I know something about what firearms can do.”

Two decades later, after 20 children and six educators were killed in a horrific school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, first-term Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas similarly challenged Feinstein during debate on legislation that would have permanently banned the weapons.

“I’m not a sixth grader,” Feinstein snapped back at the much younger Cruz – a moment that later went viral.

She added: “It’s fine you want to lecture me on the Constitution. I appreciate it. Just know I’ve been here a long time.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story was first published Sept. 29, 2023 by Connecticut Public.

On any given night, glowing orange and pink letters spelling out Dunkin’ Park light up downtown Hartford. It’s a testament to the city’s 15 Dunkin’ locations, which are among the highest in the state, along with New Haven.

But Hartford and New Haven are not the Connecticut cities with the highest Dunkin’ density, or the most Dunkin’ locations per square mile of land. That would be West Haven, with 10 shops and 10.75 square miles, which has 0.93 Dunkin’s for every square mile, compared to around 0.85 for Hartford and New Haven.

The town with the lowest Dunkin’ density is Stafford, which has only one Dunkin’ for its sprawling 58 square miles of land.

And New London, with four Dunkin' locations and about 5.6 square miles of land — making it the second smallest town in Connecticut — has the fourth-highest Dunkin' density.

As for the entire state, its 478 locations and about 4,842 square miles of land brings the Dunkin’ density to .099 per square miles of land. So about one Dunkin' for every 10 square miles.

How about compared to Dunkin’s home state of Massachusetts, where even Ben Affleck worked the drive-thru line at one point? Taking the state’s 7,800 square miles of land and dividing it evenly among 1,058 stores, it comes to about 1.36 Dunkin’ locations per 10 square miles.

So for every 10 square miles in Connecticut and Massachusetts, one can expect to see about one Dunkin’, but it’s a bit more likely in the shop’s home state.

Boston, however, reigns above all Connecticut towns, with 68 shops and 48.34 square miles of land, meaning it has a Dunkin’ density of about 1.41 for every square mile, or 14 for every 10 square miles.

It’s been nearly two decades since voting machines in Connecticut have been updated, but tabulators across the state are set to get an upgrade.

Gov. Ned Lamont announced Wednesday the State Bond Commission will vote in October to approve an allocation of $25 million to purchase new ballot-counting machines to be used in elections statewide. Lamont serves as chair of the commission and sets its agenda.

The statewide replacement of these machines will be the first one since Connecticut eliminated the use of lever voting machines 17 years ago, according to a statement from Lamont’s office.

“The machines we use to record votes are the backbone of our election system, and it is essential that we provide election officials with the equipment they need to tabulate results with accuracy and timeliness,” Lamont said in a statement.

“Although our existing machines continue to function, they are more than 17 years old and election officials tell us that they are starting to show their age,” Lamont said. “Implementing a statewide replacement of all these machines now will ensure that election workers continue to have the tools they need to conduct an Election Day that runs smooth and free of any glitches that could potentially be caused by outdated technology.”

The new machines would be used for both elections and primaries statewide. If the funding is approved, the state would solicit bids, purchase equipment and provide it to every municipality.

The allocation would allow the state to purchase several thousand traditional tabulators and dozens of high-speed tabulators, Lamont’s office says.

Voting machines were in the political spotlight across the U.S. following the 2000 presidential election. Studies of that election found millions of votes were not counted due in part to faulty voting machines.

In 2002, Republican President George W. Bush, who defeated Democratic challenger Al Gore, signed into a law an act passed by Congress that directed states to eliminate antiquated voting machines in favor of machines that read paper ballots, which keep a paper record of votes cast and are easier to audit.

The State Bond Commission is scheduled to meet Oct. 6 at 10:30 a.m.

This story was first published Sept. 27, 2023 by Connecticut Public.

President Joe Biden and Congress have dangled $1.2 trillion in matching funds before states for the past two years, challenging them to invest in their aging highways, bridges and other infrastructure.

But Connecticut has resisted that lure somewhat, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars unspent in its transportation fund since 2021 — and projecting another huge surplus in the program this fiscal year.

And while the State Bond Commission continues to approve financing for transportation work, that doesn’t always mean Connecticut will actually borrow and spend the funds in a timely fashion. 

According to the treasurer’s office, nearly $5.4 billion in commission-approved bonding still hasn’t been issued, a backlog more than six times the size of Connecticut’s projected transportation borrowing this year.

Meanwhile, the state’s approach has left construction industries and workers frustrated, and Connecticut’s gasoline station owners are calling for an immediate reduction in state fuel taxes.

Advocacy groups want fuel taxes cut

The message is simple: Use it or lose it.

“Why shouldn’t the state deliver relief to its taxpayers?” said Michael Fox, executive director of the Connecticut-based Gasoline & Automotive Service Dealers of America, commonly known as GASDA. “They need energy price relief, and they need inflation relief.”

Fox, whose organization represents about 500 stations, said the state budget’s Special Transportation Fund certainly can spare the revenue.

More than 40% of the $2.15 billion fund covers the debt service on the bonds Connecticut issues to finance upgrades to its aging infrastructure, while another 40% pays for Department of Transportation operations and public transit programs. The rest covers the Department of Motor Vehicles and fringe benefits costs.

The STF is on pace to close $204 million or almost 10% in the black when the fiscal year ends June 30, according to Gov. Ned Lamont’s budget agency, the Office of Policy and Management.

The fund closed the 2022-23 fiscal year with a 15% surplus, equal to $277 million, according to final numbers from the state comptroller’s office. And that was despite a 13-month gasoline tax holiday that returned about $330 million to motorists. Most of that loss, $240 million, occurred during the 2022-23 fiscal year.

The rest of the expense tied to that holiday, about $90 million came at the end of the 2021-22 fiscal year, when finances still finished with a 4% surplus, leaving about $79 million unspent.

The Special Transportation Fund gets most of its revenues from retail and wholesale taxes on fuel, plus a share of sales tax receipts.

Fox wants the legislature to eliminate the wholesale levy, which adds 8.81% to the price of gasoline when its delivered to local stations. That full cost is then built into the price charged to motorists.

Based on the $2.54 per gallon average wholesale price in the middle of this past week at New Haven harbor — the single-largest fuel importing site in the state — the tax currently adds about 22 cents per gallon to the price. 

The state also tacks on a flat, 25-cents-per-gallon retail tax.

Lamont’s budget staff estimates the wholesale tax would generate $387 million this fiscal year, or almost twice the $204 million projected transportation fund surplus.

Given last year’s windfall as well, Fox says he believes the state still could afford that tax cut. But if officials are wary, he added, they always could phase the relief in over a few years.

Gas station owners aren’t the only ones interested in relief.

Fuel distributors also say that if Connecticut isn’t going to spend more fixing its highways, bridges and rail lines, then consumers should benefit.

Chris Herb, president and CEO of the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association, noted that the wholesale tax originally was created more than four decades ago to help fund clean-up of underground fuel tank leaks — a program legislators voted to phase out back in 2012.

The wholesale tax at least should be reduced to reflect the fact that it no longer funds that assistance, Herb said.

And Patrick Sasser of Stamford, founder of the No Tolls CT grassroots organization that battled Lamont’s efforts to establish tolls in 2019 and 2020, said governors and many legislators have been insisting for nearly two decades that the STF will need more revenue since capital road work will begin to increase very soon.

“It becomes a bit of fear mongering, because they tell us they need the money to make these repairs,” he said. “They scare us and tell us the bridges are going to collapse, yet they don’t use the money.”

There are numbers to back Sasser’s argument.

CT spending on infrastructure upgrades has grown modestly under Lamont

Connecticut was borrowing about $600 million to $700 million per year for transportation projects in the mid-2010s and pairing it with about $700 million in federal construction grants. But DOT officials said then that capital budget of about $1.4 billion needed to be closer to $2 billion to cover both safety upgrades and projects to reduce congestion.

Connecticut issued an annual average of $725 million in transportation bonds between 2015 and 2018 under Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, according to debt reports from the state treasurer’s office. During Lamont’s first term, the annual average ticked upward just 2.6%, reaching $744 million — even though STF revenues grew 22% over those four years.

Borrowing covered by the Special Transportation Fund did rise 11.5% last fiscal year, reaching $830 million. And the Lamont administration had construction industry and trade officials excited last November when it projected the investment would grow to $1 billion in 2023-24.  Federal grants under the new Biden initiative are covering 80% to 90% of the cost of many transportation projects, meaning the more states commit, the more overall funding they can leverage.

But in the latest monthly debt report issued by state Treasurer Erick Russell’s office, it indicated Connecticut plans to issue $875 million this fiscal year, just a 5.4% increase.

The treasurer’s projections usually are based on whatever the administration — and specifically the Department of Transportation — is prepared to spend.

Both construction management and labor reacted this week with disappointment.

“We should be bonding at $1.25 billion to $1.5 billion a year right now,” said Don Shubert, president of the Connecticut Construction Industry Association, who added the extra borrowing would amount to a massive infusion in the state’s economy given the huge potential aid from Washington. “It yields one of the highest returns on investments for government spending.”

“We are sitting on a lot of money,” said Nate Brown, political director and business agent for the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 478. “We don’t want to miss this opportunity. At some point that [federal] money … will dry up.”

Lamont administration: ‘We expect to use all the revenue’

The state Department of Transportation wrote in a statement that Connecticut has leveraged more than $280 million in federal discretionary grants to date. The department “is also accelerating existing projects so they can be completed sooner, freeing up resources for other much-needed work,” it continued. “CTDOT is leveraging billions of state and federal dollars which are going towards improving the state’s infrastructure, helping grow the economy, generating jobs, connecting communities, and creating safe and accessible passageways for more people”

The Lamont administration is expected Friday to release a new bond commission agenda that endorses about $400 million in transportation borrowing that would leverage another $2 billion in federal funds.

But despite bond commission approval, the state traditionally doesn’t borrow funds until the DOT is ready to spend the dollars.

The backlog of approved transportation bonding that hasn’t been issued or spent more than doubled under Malloy and has swelled by almost 40%, from $3.9 billion to $5.4 billion, since Lamont took office in January 2019, according to the treasurer’s records.

State employee labor unions argue the department has been plagued for more than a decade by a shortage of engineers, planners and architects that make it difficult to launch projects quickly.

Shubert and Brown both said they oppose cutting fuel taxes or taking any resources away from the Special Transportation Fund. And both also said they believe DOT Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto, who inherited many challenges when Lamont tapped him nine months ago to run the department, will find a way to get more projects moving.

Lamont’s budget office had been projecting as late as February that the Special Transportation Fund would remain in surplus through mid-2026. His budget spokesman, Chris Collibee, said the office now projects an operating deficit two-and-a-half years from now, though he didn’t release specific numbers.

But even if the fund slips into the red by 2026, the administration also projected the transportation fund reserve — which holds its cumulative surpluses — will hold almost $1.2 billion by then. That’s more than half of this year’s entire Special Transportation Fund.

Collibee added that “we expect to use all the revenue going into the fund for the purposes to which they are dedicated. The nature of transportation investments are such that the drawdown of funds can sometimes take a number of years.”

Connecticut’s pension fund investment portfolio generated significant scrutiny earlier this year after a Yale study concluded it had one of the worst returns of all 50 states.

Among the findings was that Connecticut has overinvested in emerging market equities. I would posit a related problem with our pension strategy: overinvestment in dictatorships.

It has long struck me as absurd that socially responsible investing generally does not take into account whether a country is a democracy. While there are laudable efforts to divest from fossil fuel companies and gun manufacturers, it seems to me that shunning autocracies should be even more fundamental.

At best, we’ve seen one-off efforts to divest from a human rights abuser or conflict zone du jour, but not a comprehensive policy. Indeed, Connecticut already has a patchwork of laws on the books allowing the treasurer to divest from Sudan, Iran and Northern Ireland.

When I ran for the General Assembly last year, I published a foreign policy platform (as I also did in 2018). While it may sound strange for a potential state legislator to opine on international affairs, to me it is inseparable from good public policy. One of my proposals was to divest state pension funds from authoritarian regimes, especially China and Russia.

This tragically came into play a little over a month after I announced my candidacy, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Connecticut, along with dozens of other states, announced it would be divesting from Russian companies. But by then it was too late. From a narrow financial perspective, the value of Russian assets sank to practically nothing, and the Kremlin further restricted any ability to enact divestment plans. Even more important, though, was the fact that Western trade and investment had nurtured Putin’s Russia for over two decades, enabling Moscow to build up its military and police state.

As if we needed to learn this lesson yet again, waiting until a crisis hits is an utterly futile strategy: the very definition of too little too late. Are we to wait until China invades Taiwan to realize that doing business with the world’s largest dictatorship was a grievous mistake? Did we really need the murder of Jamal Khashoggi to remind us that Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy (and even that didn’t keep investors away for long)?

It is a moral and financial imperative for Connecticut to divest from dictatorships. We hear a lot of cheap talk in this state about democracy; here’s an opportunity to put our money where our mouth is. We can set an example for other state and national pension funds, progressively reducing the free world’s complicity in repressive regimes and degrading their ability to inflict harm in the first place.

Andy Gottlieb is a Democrat from Guilford and was a candidate for the General Assembly in 2018 and 2022.

Yale New Haven Health officials acknowledged for the first time Thursday they have growing concerns about the completion of a deal to buy Waterbury, Manchester Memorial and Rockville General hospitals and said the acquisition is “more at risk” as time passes without approval from the state.

The three hospitals are owned by Prospect Medical Holdings.

“We have mounting concerns about the viability of our transaction with Prospect Medical Holdings to acquire substantially all the assets of Waterbury and [Eastern Connecticut Health Network] hospitals,” Rob Hutchison, senior vice president of marketing and communications for Yale New Haven Health, said in an email to The Connecticut Mirror. “Our concerns include the deteriorating condition of the Waterbury and ECHN hospitals, particularly in light of the cyber-attack last month, and the state Office of Health Strategy process to review the [certificate of need] application that we filed last November.”

Hutchison said Yale officials are working on a recovery plan to “salvage the acquisition of these community hospitals.”

The plan would involve Yale, Prospect Medical and state officials sitting down to “discuss a path forward,” he said, including examining how Yale might design and direct an information technology recovery effort at the hospitals, which were recently hit with a debilitating cyberattack.

“We are engaged in conversations with Prospect about the plan, and we stand ready to engage with the state,” he said. “We believe that every day that passes without a path forward puts the transaction more at risk.”

Nina Kruse, a spokeswoman for ECHN, and Lauresha Xhihani, a spokeswoman for Waterbury Hospital, could not be reached for comment Thursday night.

Earlier this week, the heads of Waterbury and Manchester hospitals met with Gov. Ned Lamont and with a group of about 30 legislators to discuss the cyberattack and fiscal difficulties at the facilities.

Hospital executives painted a gloomy picture of their finances and urged the state to move quickly on approving a sale of the facilities to Yale New Haven Health, according to people who were present at the legislators’ meeting.

Yale announced in 2022 that it had signed an agreement with Prospect to acquire the hospitals. Completion of the sale and a certificate of need process is pending. Hospital officials have said they are worried about the length of time the state has taken to review and approve the sale.

Deidre Gifford, executive director of Connecticut’s Office of Health Strategy, has defended the state’s timetable for reviewing the certificate of need.

“There is a statutory process,” she told the CT Mirror last week. “We have met our timelines on the cost and market impact review. We prepared an initial draft; we shared it with the transacting parties. They had 30 days to send us comments. We have just received the comments back from the parties. The next steps are, we have, by statute, 60 days to incorporate any changes. … We have not missed any of the statutory timelines.”

A spokeswoman for Gifford could not be reached Thursday evening.

Sen. Saud Anwar, who with Majority Leader Jason Rojas organized the legislators’ meeting Tuesday, said that hospital executives expressed concern about their “dire” financial situation and are having trouble paying vendors and physicians under contract to provide care at the facilities.

Representatives from Yale New Haven Health and Prospect Medical also attended the gathering, held at the state Capitol.

“They were talking about almost getting to the point where they’re having difficulty paying for bed linens, things like that,” said Anwar, D-South Windsor, who is co-chair of the legislature’s Public Health Committee and a physician under contract at Manchester Memorial. “Between the cyberattack and the current financial situation … they are going through a very significant financial challenge.”

Yale raised concerns at the meeting about investing in facilities with outdated computer systems. An official with Prospect said the company was dealing with dual issues of financial challenges and recovering from the cyberattack, Anwar said.

“I know [some of] the hospital doctors have not been getting paid. Many of them are planning to leave. And then there are other situations where there have been the limitations on lab equipment and chemicals used for labs.”

Anwar said the CEOs also warned that if the sale falls through, the hospitals would not remain financially viable or functional.

“With their lack of funding and capacity with the cyberattack, their survival may be impacted if the state delays this sale or [approves it] with contingencies that are going to make Yale walk away,” he said. “The fear we have at this point is if, God forbid, something like that happens … then the deal will fall through and the hospitals will have to close, which would mean thousands of jobs would be lost and hundreds of thousands of people in our state would be without health care.”

In an interview with the CT Mirror on Thursday, Anwar reiterated that concern.

“If the Yale transaction does not go through, the chances are very high that [the Prospect-owned hospitals] will not make it or they will become a shell with most things being transferred to other hospitals, and they’ll be doing only very basic things,” he said. “It will not be sustainable anymore.”

The cyberattack began in early August and lasted for more than six weeks, forcing the hospitals to divert patients, cancel surgeries and care for fewer people because of staffing issues.

Waterbury Hospital President Justin Lundbye told the CT Mirror Tuesday that although computer systems are working again, the hospitals face “a long-term recovery” from the attack.

The CT Mirror reported last week that another Connecticut hospital CEO, citing discussions with Lundbye, told Lamont that Waterbury owes vendors more than $40 million and that Yale executives are concerned about “deteriorating conditions” at Prospect’s three Connecticut facilities.

Yale officials “have begun to question whether acquiring Manchester and Waterbury hospitals remains a prudent business decision,” Pat Charmel, CEO of Griffin Health in Derby, wrote to Lamont in August.

In his email to the governor, Charmel said Prospect Medical’s “long awaited” debt refinancing was supposed to “improve liquidity and provide working capital” to hospitals like Waterbury, Manchester and Rockville, but “none of the proceeds found their way to Connecticut.”

“In previous discussions and correspondence about conditions at Waterbury, I told you that Justin [Lundbye] was stretching out his vendors (many of them local), and the hospital’s accounts payable were growing,” Charmel wrote. “They have continued to grow and are now in excess of $40,000,000. Many vendors have Waterbury and Manchester hospitals on credit hold and are refusing to do additional business with the hospitals until AP balances (vendor receivables) are paid down.” 

In an emailed statement last week, Lundbye said $25 million to $30 million had been provided by Prospect to its Connecticut-owned hospitals since June, when the debt refinancing was completed, but he did not say how the money was used or whether it went toward vendor payments. He declined to say how much money was still owed to vendors.

Charmel warned that the financial troubles could affect the sale of Prospect’s Connecticut hospitals to Yale New Haven Health.

“We know that Waterbury, Manchester and Rockville hospitals will only get relief when their proposed acquisition by the Yale New Haven Health System is finalized,” he wrote to Lamont. “I have not spoken to [Yale] CEO Chris O’Connor recently, but I am aware that Chris and his board are concerned about deteriorating conditions at Waterbury and Manchester hospitals and have begun to question whether acquiring Manchester and Waterbury hospitals remains a prudent business decision.”

Providing a glimpse into what major criminal justice policy lawmakers could prioritize when the legislature assembles in February, the House chair of the Judiciary Committee pleaded with the Connecticut Sentencing Commission on Thursday to continue reexamining the state’s bail infrastructure. 

During his remarks to the commission at its first in-person meeting since January 2020, Rep. Steven Stafstrom outlined what he feels are two overarching problems: The inability to detain people accused of committing violent crimes, and the ability to keep poor and low-income people locked up pretrial who aren’t dangerous but can’t afford to bail out. 

The Bridgeport Democrat said the problem stems from an outdated constitutional provision, which holds that the state can deny bail only to people accused of committing capital offenses. 

But capital offenses were repealed after the death penalty was abolished more than a decade ago, which left virtually no options for courts to hold people pretrial if an accused person has the financial means to post bail. 

“We need to repeal the current constitutional provision that talks about the death penalty and that being the only way to hold somebody without bail,” Stafstrom told the commission. “We should be looking at, I believe, moving towards more of a risk-based system. What that looks like, I hope, comes from this room.”

Though no members of the commission followed up with questions, Judge Robin Pavia, the commission’s chair, told the representative that bail was a part of “issues that we certainly are continuing to look at.”

“We are so appreciative of all of the legislative input and hearing issues that you feel are important,” Pavia said. “It’s crucial for us, and where to focus and how to focus, and so your coming here today and saying that is very, very helpful.”

This year’s legislative session saw what many considered a major development in Connecticut bail reform. Lawmakers had proposed House Joint Resolution 261, an effort to amend the Constitution and allow the state to establish a risk-based pretrial system as opposed to a bail system based on a person’s financial means. The measure also sought to grant the legislature authority to set additional terms around pretrial release.

It was opposed by the bail industry, public defenders, prosecutors and advocates, some of whom believed the resolution marked a “radical departure” from the current system that would have a negative effect on people of color — who disproportionately account for more than 70% of incarcerated people in the state. Some officials also expressed frustration that changes were being considered without any input from stakeholders. 

The resolution passed out of the Judiciary and Government Administration and Elections committees with some bipartisan support, but it never reached the House floor for a vote. 

Speaker Matthew Ritter, D-Hartford, said during the session that he saw a need for more education around bail reform. Stafstrom agreed, later telling the CT Mirror that he planned to make the resolution his top priority going into 2024. 

But significant change could take several years, just as it did in states like New Jersey and Illinois — which have overhauled their bail infrastructures. 

Constitutional amendments in Connecticut must pass through the House and Senate with three-fourths majority support in one legislative term, or a simple majority in two successive legislative terms. They then have to garner majority support among voters. 

If enough state residents voted in support of the amendment, it would become part of the Constitution and give lawmakers the green light to debate and settle upon additional changes to bail. But it’s unclear how officials would change the system. 

“There should be a more holistic look at it,” Stafstrom said at the Sentencing Commission meeting. “And I think that this group really should be the place that conversation originates from. And certainly, I’m here to work with you and partner with you as you hopefully dig in.”

Officials on Thursday also briefly discussed a different bail revision set to go into effect in 2024. 

Currently people accused of a crime can post bail by paying a bail bonds agency — which loans them the money for a nonrefundable fee — the full amount or paying 10% of the amount if the total is $20,000 or less. 

Starting January 1, 2024, the latter choice — voted on by Superior Court judges earlier this year — will become known as the 7% cash bail option, providing one the possibility of paying 7% of their bail amount if the total is $50,000 or less. 

The COVID pandemic exposed the fragility of Connecticut’s child care sector — as well as its vital role in the economy. Now, three years on, a high-profile effort to bolster the state’s early childhood education system is nearing its final stages.

State leaders have placed great expectations on the work of a “Blue Ribbon Panel,” convened by Gov. Ned Lamont in March, which was tasked with developing a five-year strategic plan for the system by the end of this year.

A draft of that plan, released earlier this month, contains an ambitious set of recommendations — and a significant price tag. Still, some advocates say the strategy isn’t bold enough.

The plan includes investments in the workforce, by boosting state funding for providers and offering health benefits and education opportunities for educators. It seeks to make child care more affordable by expanding families’ eligibility for state subsidies, and it seeks to augment supply and access across various segments of the system. Broadly, the plan seeks to reduce complexity, maximize existing resources and identify additional sources of funding.

“This kind of prioritization for child care in Connecticut has not happened in my career, in 40 years, with this level of engagement and participation,” Beth Bye, commissioner of the Office of Early Childhood, told members of the panel at a gathering to review the draft last week. “It speaks to where child care is right now in the conversation about what matters in Connecticut and how Connecticut can move forward.”

Bye said preliminary estimates of what it would cost to meet all the goals laid out in the panel’s draft plan — in the hundreds of millions of dollars — were “stunning.” So the commissioner asked members to discuss in groups which components of the plan they’d prioritize in final recommendations to the governor and the legislature, which are due by the end of this year.

The assignment didn’t sit right with some members of the panel and observers at the meeting. 

“It’s actually not a good idea to start from a place of scarcity,” said panel member William Johnson, director of educational strategy at the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund. “We should be starting with recommendations that are bold and wide and diverse and meet the needs of all of our citizens in the state.”

Johnson said the panel’s convening presented an opportunity to define a “North Star” for early childhood education in Connecticut. “But if we start from where we’re starting, I just think we don’t get nearly as close to where we need to go.” He said it was especially critical for the panel — made up largely of advocates, providers and businesses — to listen to the needs of parents around the state.

Over the summer, the CT Early Childhood Funder Collaborative gathered input from nearly 900 families in a series of interviews conducted by community organizations around the state. The families talked about their desire for loving environments, caring teachers, quality nutrition, affordability and access. But they also spoke of their needs for flexibility, convenience and programs that address their unique situations.

Georgia Goldburn, director of child development center Hope for New Haven, attended the panel’s meeting last week, and she said she didn’t hear anything in the plan that would address the circumstances of many of the state’s most vulnerable parents — who often need that flexibility. 

Goldburn highlighted two distressing individual stories of parents being forced to make painful choices because they didn’t have the support they needed. In one case, a mother had qualified for state-subsidized care for her baby through the Care4Kids program, but she was placed on a waiting list. Care4Kids only offers the subsidy to parents who are working or looking for work, and in this case the mother had a job — but she couldn’t get care. Her only option was to send her small child to Jamaica to be looked after by family members while she waited to come off the waiting list. 

The other case Goldburn highlighted was that of Tabitha Frank, a mother of five in Hartford whose youngest child recently died after falling out a window. Frank, who worked double shifts as a certified nursing assistant, was driving Uber on the side to provide for her family; on the day her son died, she had accepted a ride, leaving the children briefly at home with the expectation her son’s father would be there momentarily.

[RELATED: The forces that shaped a Hartford toddler’s life — and death]

“Tabitha’s story is what’s happening right now with a lot of mothers, a lot of families,” Goldburn said. “Those are the choices that parents have been making because they don’t have care for their children. That’s the choice that families in Connecticut, the most vulnerable families, have been making.”

Goldburn added: “Nothing in the blue ribbon plan changes the situation for any of those mothers next year — or this year.”

A ‘systems approach’ for a ‘broken’ system

Panel member Jessica Sager, chief executive of the All Our Kin network of home-based child care providers, also had reservations about the plan draft. Sager said she supports the proposals to expand Care4Kids eligibility, boost workforce compensation, offer stabilization grants to providers and extend health care benefits to educators in the field. 

“How that’s going to happen, and in particular, how to make it happen equitably … that’s still very much a work in progress,” Sager said. 

In order for it to work, all components of the plan have to be fully funded, she said. “Expanding eligibility to the subsidy program is really no help if you’re going to keep the pool of dollars the same — all that does is grow the waitlist.”

Several panel members and experts agreed that choosing to prioritize some components of the plan over others might have unintended consequences.

Dan Wuori, an early learning researcher with national think tank the Hunt Institute, told members of the panel that the child care market (which, in Connecticut, is 70% privately-operated) doesn’t function in a standard way, where supply and demand balance each other out. 

“Oregon created, through their state budget, thousands of new pre-K slots, but actually enrolled well under their goal because they literally couldn’t find teachers to staff those classrooms,” Wuori said. “So I think you have to be careful.”

The panel has to find a balance, Bye said, between raising pay for teachers and funding to expand program capacity while also increasing financial assistance for parents so they can afford to put their children in child care programs. It’s “about breaking that link between what parents can pay and what staff are paid,” she said. “Some of that we’ve been able to do with increasing rates, stabilization grants, et cetera. But these things are very much interrelated.”

Panel member Karen Lott, director of Women’s League Child Development Center in Bloomfield, said any approach to overhauling early childhood education in Connecticut should consider all of the components of the plan simultaneously. The system has been “broken for a very long time,” she said.

“We have to look at this as a systems approach…  not just, you know, the first priority, the second and the third,” she said. “We look at it as a systematic implementation of all of those pieces.”

Many laws passed by the Connecticut General Assembly during the 2023 legislative session are set to take effect on Oct. 1.

They range from strengthened gun measures and renters’ rights to the elimination of “transcript withholding.”

Here’s a look at some of the legislation that will take effect this Sunday.

Updates to Connecticut’s gun laws

H.B. 6667, An Act Addressing Gun Violence, is the first comprehensive update of Connecticut’s gun laws since the sweeping reforms enacted a decade ago in response to the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The law bans the open carry of firearms and strengthens rules for gun storage and reporting stolen firearms. It also expands a ban on AR-15s and other so-called assault weapons passed in 1993 and updated in 2013.

AR-15s purchased prior to the bans still can be legally owned, if registered with the police. But the new law closed what proponents called a loophole that allowed the legal sale of now-banned weapons if manufactured prior to 1994.

The legislation also further tightens restrictions on military-style weapons and high-capacity magazines that were largely banned after the Sandy Hook school shooting. 

Additionally, the bill regulates the sale of body armor to civilians, generally limits the sale of handguns to three in any one month, increases training requirements for gun permit holders, and raises the minimum age to purchase a semiautomatic rifle from 18 to 21, the same threshold as handguns.

The bill also bans the online sale of kits used to assemble “ghost guns,” firearms that have no serial number and are largely untraceable.

Strengthened renters’ rights

Much of Senate Bill 988, a wide-ranging law with new and strengthened renters’ rights, takes effect on Oct. 1. The portions about to go into effect include limits on application and overdue rent fees and stricter security deposit return requirements.

The bill limits the apartment application fees landlords can charge to security deposits, first month’s rent, a key or special equipment deposit and the fee for the tenant screening report, which is capped at $50 plus any inflation costs. All other application fees will be prohibited.

Additionally, the bill requires landlords to return tenants’ security deposits (and interest on them) within 21 days, rather than 30, or else they’re liable for double the original amount.

Landlords will also face new limits on charging fees for overdue rent, and the law gives tenants either a nine-day grace period or four days for week-to-week renters before fees start.

The fees have to be the least of these options: up to $5 per day, for a maximum of $50; 5% of the overdue rent; or 5% of the tenant’s share of the rent if they are in a nonprofit or government rent aid program such as the housing choice voucher program. 

Landlords also can’t charge more than one late fee for unpaid rent, no matter how long it’s overdue.

The bill also gets rid of an exemption to the law banning housing discrimination against people in the LGBTQ community. Previously, people who are renting out one room in their house or landlords who rent out housing in a building with up to four units and live in one of the units were exempt from the law. Senate Bill 988 removes that exemption.

Traffic cameras in municipalities

House Bill 5917 allows Connecticut municipalities to use automated cameras to enforce speed limit and red light violations.

The cameras will be limited to school zones, defined pedestrian safety zones and other locations chosen by local officials and approved by the Office of State Traffic Administration.

Automated enforcement zones must be clearly marked, and speeders will have to be going at least 10 miles per hour over the limit to get an automated ticket.

Fines will be capped at $50 for a first offense and $75 for a second offense regardless of a violator’s recorded speed. The revenue will go to municipalities and must be used for traffic-related expenses.

Eliminating ‘transcript withholding’

Senate Bill 922 will prevent higher education institutions in Connecticut from withholding the transcripts of students who still owe debts to their college or university in certain instances.

In some cases, the debt in question is unpaid tuition. Often, it’s smaller debts such as library fines, unpaid parking fees or an unreturned textbook penalty.

The ‘bear bill’

Public Act 23-77 allows for the killing of black bears in certain instances. It clarifies existing rights of residents to kill a bear that is attacking people or pets, allows farmers suffering from crop or livestock destruction by bears to get a permit from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to kill the bear, bans intentional feeding of bears, and provides for penalties if someone is found to have done that.

The University of Connecticut has fared well in college rankings released this month, coming in at No. 26 in the U.S. News & World Report’s list of public universities in the country and cracking the top 50 in The Wall Street Journal’s ranking of both private and public institutions.

But how much do these rankings matter? And what’s the difference?

Many say the rankings, no matter how they’re arrived at, are only a part of the story.

“I think a higher rating gives parents a sense of confidence. … When you have things like strong graduation rates, people graduating on time, affordability, a high ranking of graduate salaries — this makes parents feel like ‘OK, my kid’s going to graduate in time, I know what to expect. They’re going to be able to get a job.’ They look at those kinds of things as a return on investment,” said Vicki Boudin, who works as a college admissions consultant at College Docs, which is based in Fairfield.

But Boudin cautioned that a ranking is just a "piece of the puzzle" when making a decision about which college to attend.

"It's really important that people don't rely solely on [rankings] because so much important information can be missed that goes into deciding on a best fit for each student," Boudin said. "We have to look at things like, do they offer specialty programs? The diversity ... the environment, how about how kids with learning differences [are served]?"

Joan Casey, president of Educational Advocates College Consulting, has helped students find the right higher education institutions for nearly two decades. Casey said college rankings often sway toward reputation, rather than what the school could really offer.

"I just think that human nature is such that people look at rankings, and they don't necessarily take the time to look at the methodology. They kind of just take it for granted sometimes, so that can be a big problem," Casey said. "Those numbers don't completely tell the story."

In the U.S. News & World Report ranking released last week, UConn retained its No. 26 rank, down from 23rd in 2020 and 20th in 2016.

The ranking's methodology is based on almost 20 factors, including ratings by academic peers (20% of the ranking), graduation rates (16%), average student debt, research citations and faculty salaries. For this year's ranking, they also removed a handful of indicators including class size and alumni giving.

The ranking from U.S. News & World Report comes two weeks after The Wall Street Journal said the university was a top 50 school after it transitioned to a methodology this year that's weighted mostly by student outcomes, specifically how a college boosts its graduates' salaries compared to other colleges. It also takes into account learning environment and diversity.

“While we know that rankings cannot capture all aspects of UConn’s many strengths, we are pleased that the University continues to be recognized so positively and consistently for its indicators of student success,” said UConn President Radenka Maric. “We want our students to embark on their careers with an education that prepares them to build fulfilling and happy lives through creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, emotional intelligence, and critical life skills such as financial literacy.”

In both reports, Yale University was the only Connecticut-based higher education institution to rank higher than UConn. Yale was rated No. 5 in the U.S. News & World Report ranking and No. 3 in the Journal’s report.

Across New England, Connecticut also out-ranked neighboring state flagship universities, including the universities of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts-Amherst and Rhode Island.

Other Connecticut schools were ranked in different lists that U.S. News & World Report produced. The lists are grouped by schools that share similar characteristics, such as their program offerings and regional location.

As such, UConn was not compared directly with Wesleyan, for example. UConn is part of the National Universities list, which includes schools that offer undergraduate, master's and doctoral programs along with an emphasis on faculty research. Wesleyan is part of the National Liberal Arts Colleges list, which includes schools that focus almost exclusively on undergraduate education and award at least half of their degrees in the arts and sciences.

Both Casey and Boudin said college rankings are often more important to the universities themselves and parents, rather than students — who often care more about the feeling they get from a school and the type of experience they'll get.

"The truth is, it's very hard to rank colleges," Casey said, adding that certain factors like starting salaries could be deceiving. "I think that colleges [instead] could be more transparent and share more information about what's happening [at their campuses, like], their financial health [and] their admissions policies."

And though Casey and Boudin were critical of the rankings, they said it easily offers some insight, or a starting place, for students to find the right fit and for colleges to take value in other metrics.

Graduation rates and performance for Pell Grant recipients and first-generation students make up 11% of the rankings for schools in the National University list. Pell Grants are awards from the U.S. Department of Education to low-income students.

"It is good that they're paying attention to first gen and how Pell Grant recipients are supported. I think that's good if it makes colleges pay attention to those populations, and that could be a really good thing for our country and our world to move toward more fairness," Casey said.

UConn's share of Pell Grant students in the 2020-21 entering class was 22%, tied at a rank of 100 with other schools such as Harvard and UCLA, according to data compiled by The New York Times.

"I think that there's some value to ratings but we [need to] look at a whole lot of other factors because I think that's only one dimension," Boudin said.

The Connecticut Business and Industry Association 2023 Survey of Connecticut Businesses found a lot to be positive about, including the state’s fiscal strength and the budget surplus.

In addition, three-quarters of the 3,000 top business executives surveyed said that they experienced their most profitable year in 2022 and two-thirds expect profits to grow this year. It’s great news for economic stability as well as for business leader morale.

Yet, 81% of respondents also said they are struggling to find and retain experienced workers and the labor shortage is their top concern.

Though the unemployment rate (3.6%) is the lowest since February 2002, and only slightly higher than the national average (3.5%), the Connecticut labor shortage is described in the report as the “greatest threat to the state’s economic prospects.” In fact, of top executives surveyed, 46% reported the lack of skilled job applicants is the greatest obstacle to growth.

The aging workforce, stagnant population growth, and Connecticut’s high cost of living are cited as major reasons for the workforce gap, but 33% of surveyed businesses said that applicants generally did not possess the required skills or expertise they need. A majority (50%) of surveyed employers are looking for post high-school education, such as certificate programs (21%), bachelor’s degrees (21%) and master’s degrees (8%). Without a top-notch talent pool prepared with relevant 21^st century skills businesses face the possibility of failing to remain viable and competitive.

Affordability persists as a barrier to preventing some from accessing post-secondary education opportunities. In a ranking of states with lowest student debt at time of graduation, Connecticut ranks 46^th, with an average students debt of $35,800 compared to the national average of $29,300. The state also ranks 46^th in a ranking of the lowest average college tuition and fees required of in-state students at public four-year institutions.

Combating the high cost of a getting a certificate or college degree in Connecticut will require expansive, collaborative efforts on job training and workforce development. Supporting workforce development in the state starts with developing transformative partnerships with local businesses, traditional brick-and-mortar colleges and universities, and local and regional membership-based associations. Though only 38% of business leader respondents are currently engaged with education institutions, including high schools, it’s critical for businesses to establish alliances with education providers to support their human resource objectives and to expand access for their employees.

Another solution to make a college degree more attainable is to address barriers of cost and time.  Online, competency-based education measures skills and subject knowledge rather than time or “hours” spent in a classroom. Each student individually progresses through courses as soon as they can prove they have mastered the material, rather than advancing only when the semester or term ends. The flexibility of this approach means that students are able to work full-time while also acquiring skills for a future or current job at a pace that is best for them. This approach benefits both workers and employers by saving time and money and developing a more diverse workforce that meets the needs of our modern economy.

Accredited, nonprofit Western Governors University (WGU) offers a competency-based learning model, as well as a six-month, flat rate tuition in which a student can progress through as many competencies in a term as her schedule and motivation permits at no extra cost. WGU’s annual tuition for two six-month terms is $7,452, and undergraduates have an average debt of $14,995.

The WGU mission includes workforce development efforts like skills mapping to ensure graduates have the skills employers need by aligning curricula closely with what hiring managers need. Led by WGU, the Open Skills Network (OSN) is a coalition of employers, education providers, policy makers, military, non-profits, and other stakeholders dedicated to advancing skills-based education and hiring.

Innovative approaches to college education provide a key long-term strategy for workforce investment. Focusing on skill-based mastery at an affordable cost with a flexible schedule allows learners to stay employed while earning a degree. These innovative learning models are complementary to traditional higher education options in the Constitution State, expanding opportunity to fill existing gaps.

Higher education has a duty to help connect talent with professional opportunity, by offering a variety of ways to train Connecticut’s workforce with the credentials employers trust.

Rebecca L. Watts, Ph.D., serves as a regional vice president for Western Governors University (WGU), a non-profit, accredited online university.

Thousands of federal employees, active duty military and civilian defense personnel in Connecticut could stop getting paid if Congress does not fund the federal government before Oct. 1.

A shutdown would have a ripple effect on the state’s economy and workforce, but the implications shift depending on its duration. While a number of vital services would continue, such as Social Security and Medicare, other programs could start to see disruptions, especially if a shutdown lasts for weeks.

The most immediate consequences for Connecticut and the U.S. would be furloughs of federal employees who work for various government agencies. Some workers, however, are considered “excepted,” like the military and most air traffic controllers. But whether or not they work during a shutdown, none of them would get paychecks and would receive back pay only after government funding resumes.

Over the past few weeks, Congress has struggled to agree on a way to avoid the government from shutting down by Sunday, which has stemmed from Republicans who narrowly control the House. Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has been focusing on passing party-line spending legislation despite fierce opposition from some within his own party who have further slowed down the process.

Those House bills, however, would not ultimately prevent a shutdown, since they would not get enough support in a Democratic-controlled Senate or would face a veto from President Joe Biden.

In an effort to break the impasse, the Senate introduced a short-term bill, known as a continuing resolution, to fund the government at current levels. The legislation, which also includes additional funds for Ukraine and disaster relief, has support from both Democratic and Republican leadership in the Senate.

The nearly $6 billion proposed in disaster assistance would come as the Federal Emergency Management Agency delays similar aid for states in order to preserve funding in case of emergencies and devastating natural disasters during a shutdown, according to The Washington Post. Connecticut was slated to receive more than $21 million in federal disaster aid.

But with House Republicans opposed to the Senate’s continuing resolution without including border security provisions and no clear support for any compromise legislation, Congress is headed toward a shutdown by the end of the weekend.

“We know how this ends,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District, said in an interview about Congress eventually getting behind a short-term funding bill. “That’s the only path.”

“The question is how long does that take. How much pain do the American people need to feel so that MAGA radicals climb down off their pedestal?” Himes continued, referring to former President Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again.”

What does this mean for federal workers in CT?

The exact implications for Connecticut, its economy and workforce would depend on how long the government would remain unfunded. A shutdown under a week may have a more muted effect on the state. But one prolonging for weeks or longer would result in missed paychecks and a steeper reduction in services.

The partial government shutdown from late December 2018 to early January 2019 affected about 1,500 federal employees in Connecticut. But if it happens again over the weekend, the government would be in a full shutdown, since no new funding was approved by Congress for any of the agencies.

Connecticut has more than 8,400 federal workers who mostly work for Cabinet-level agencies as well as at large independent agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Small Business Administration, according to data from March compiled by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The number grows when including government contractors.

Nearly half of Connecticut employees who serve in Cabinet agencies work for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. And more than a third work for defense-related agencies like the Pentagon, the Navy, the Army and the Air Force, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, which has jurisdiction over the Coast Guard.

In addition to civilian personnel working with the Pentagon, Connecticut has more than 6,000 members on active duty, according to data compiled by the Defense Manpower Data Center. The data does not include those who serve in the Army. Those on active duty would work without pay until the end of the shutdown.

While many federal workers would face furloughs, some would continue their jobs like the military, border security and air traffic controllers and U.S. Transportation Security Administration agents. Regardless of their employment status, none of those workers would get paid and would only receive back pay once government funding resumes.

With the process largely at a standstill in the House, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, is pushing for House Republicans to get behind the Senate's bipartisan proposal for short-term funding.

DeLauro is the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee and plays a key role in crafting and negotiating spending legislation to fund the government. She said conversations are ongoing in the House to find a solution.

Whenever Congress passes a short-term funding bill, DeLauro's committee will need to keep negotiating the passage of 12 appropriations bills that will keep the government running at new spending levels through fiscal year 2024.

"This is about the economy. You’re really playing fast and loose with the economic security of the American people," DeLauro said in an interview.

"When you have food inspectors who can’t get into the plants to do their job, that’s part of it," she continued, arguing that a slowdown in production could increase the price of food. "It is totally irresponsible."

A potential shutdown is also likely to affect the defense workforce in Connecticut, especially for major defense contractors, the state's submarine base and the Coast Guard Academy based in New London.

Rep. Joe Courtney, whose 2nd District includes many of these defense entities in eastern Connecticut, noted there are 2,000 civilian employees who work at the Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton. During a past shutdown, Courtney said, the base did not have crane operators and maintenance staff working.

"In 2019, when the Coast Guard was shut down along with the Department of Homeland Security in New London, we had pop-up food banks to help Coast Guard families put food on the table for themselves and their family members," Courtney said from the House floor this week. "This potential shutdown is totally unnecessary, unfair, and will wreak havoc across the country."

If the prospects of a shutdown increase by the end of the week, it is possible lawmakers could pass a provision to ensure the paychecks of those serving in the military. Congress has passed measures like that in previous years, but lawmakers only have a few more days to do so before funding lapses.

Legislation would need to specifically include members of the Coast Guard, since it is overseen by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The other military branches fall under the Pentagon.

"It’s both the right thing to do. The military should get paid, but so should our federal judges. We have TSA agents and air traffic controllers," Himes said. "It’s painful enough to take the federal workforce … and to divide them into essential and inessential. It’s already horrendous enough to make these designations."

Which programs and services are most at risk?

Because of mandatory funding, Social Security and Medicare would still be up and running. The Department of Veterans Affairs would also be able to process veterans benefits during a shutdown.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as the food stamp program, would also continue, though it is possible it could see disruptions in a prolonged shutdown.

But some other key programs could take a more immediate hit.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture could stop processing farm loans. Farmers in Connecticut, many who operate small farms and do not have as much access to capital, depend on federally backed loans since it is tougher for them to get pre-approved for a conventional loan to be able to compete with big developers.

While SNAP would still function, families who use the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, known as WIC, would likely lose benefits. The program provides food assistance to low-income families, with about 47,000 total beneficiaries in Connecticut, according to 2023 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Other assistance for low-income families could also be interrupted. State governments could be on the hook for paying for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits, which provides monthly cash assistance to low-income families. The federal government provides block grants to states to fund the program.

And Head Start, a federally funded early learning and education program for infants up until age 5, could also see major reductions over time. A group supporting Head Start said a shutdown would have a swift effect on some of its programming and accelerate closures if the government remains closed for a while.

"If a shutdown happens on Oct. 1, there are 10 programs serving more than 10,000 children and families across the nation who will be immediately impacted," Yasmina Vinci, executive director of the National Head Start Association, said in a statement.

"And if the shutdown stretches from days to weeks or even months, the likelihood of closed classrooms increases drastically," she added. "All the while Congress has the ability to pass a simple, straightforward, bipartisan continuing resolution to enable further debate without harm to children and families."

After obtaining more than 1,000 online signatures of support within two weeks, a group of students at the University of Connecticut pleaded with university officials Wednesday to commit to a plan for divesting from fossil fuels and work toward decarbonizing the campus.

“Our continued dependence on fossil fuels for our energy needs …  directly undermines our human rights mission and university mission statement — more broadly — by denying members of our global community their right to a safe and healthy environment,” Nell Srinath, a senior political science and journalism student, said at the Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday morning. “The university mission statement states the goal of enhancing social, economic, cultural and natural environments of the state and beyond. I hope you realize as well that it is impossible to fulfill these commitments if we’re not fully doing our part to eliminate carbon emissions.”

“Climate change is here and is already causing irreparable harm which will get increasingly catastrophic if left unchecked,” added Thomas Bonitz, a geographic information science and economics student. “The present moment is our best chance to avoid disaster and cultivate a brighter future and prepare for future generations. You all have the power to transform this university into one that cares for and achieves a sustainable tomorrow.”

Last year, UConn President Radenka Maric announced the university’s goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. A “comprehensive Sustainability Action Plan” was expected to be released in the spring of 2023, according to a news release from December 2022 — something students say never happened.

“We’ve been told over and over again that something’s coming out and they have given us no evidence that it’s even being worked on,” said Colin Rosadino, a second-year law student, who’s leading the push to get the UConn board to divest from fossil fuels. “We want to know that somebody’s working on it. We want to see evidence of that. We work with the administration a lot, and we’re on a working group with the administration to work on sustainability stuff — and they don’t show us that. So we’re hoping that we can get that through our actions today and in the future.”

Rosadino said the student group “Fossil Fuel Free UConn” last received an update on Sept. 23 from administrators that the plan was still being worked on. 

“We feel like we’re being waited out like ‘This group of students will graduate in bunches in four years. Let’s wait them out’,” said Monet Paredes, a senior political science and environmental studies major. “They’re not saying that, but it’s implied because nothing’s been done. … We’re not letting this go. There are students that will come after us, and there’s been students who came before us trying to do this.”

A spokesperson from UConn did not immediately confirm whether the plan was released yet or would be soon.

In 2006, the university switched from “several oil-fired utility boilers,” to a natural gas powered Cogeneration Plant, which officials said made “a more efficient, green-friendly approach to providing the energy that powers UConn Storrs.”

The university’s plant produced nearly 87,700 tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2021, according to data by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which is the equivalent to burning over 8.95 million gallons of gas or the average yearly energy use of 10,027 homes.

Following public comment at the Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday, Maric’s President Report welcomed the university’s new freshman class and introduced goals for the academic year including building on research, additional funding and doubling down on how sustainability continues to be a forefront issue at UConn.

A presentation from professor Xiao-Dong Zhou, who’s also the new director of the Center for Clean Energy Engineering, also highlighted initiatives, including identifying “key clusters” for sustainability like breaking down energy conservation projects and their annual economic and environmental benefits.

Zhou also welcomed a partnership with students.

“Please come to my office, organize a call with me, I would love to hear more from you,” Zhou said. “Talk to me today, tomorrow, or in the next few days, but don’t wait a week or a month. … I want to have a two-way dialogue.”

And though Paredes and Rosadino said Maric’s administration has generally been receptive to their advocacy, they’re hesitant to believe the board will immediately move forward with a plan. The two students said their group plans to continue pushing the Board of Trustees to provide financial backing and support.

“We’re going to be at the next board meeting in October,” Paredes said. “We also are reaching out to student organizations and department heads for an endorsement letter that we want to deliver to them, just endorsing the demands and saying we want this — not just Fossil Fuel Free UConn — but all these student groups that have a stake in this issue, no matter if you’re involved in climate activism or not.”

Board members seemed receptive on Wednesday to students’ comments and thanked them for speaking out.

Other universities like Harvard, Princeton, Boston University, NYU and UMass have already moved forward with vowing to divest from fossil fuels.

UMass was the first major public university to make the decision, which was announced in 2016 and came after “a series of developments that signaled the University community’s desire to fight climate change,” the university blog said.

More recently, New York University pledged to end its reliance on fossil fuels earlier this month. William Berkley, chair of NYU’s Board of Trustees, said the university planned to “[slash] greenhouse emissions from building energy, reduce food-related emissions and … achieve net zero by 2040,” according to a report from The Guardian.

Read this story in English.

En las primarias Demócratas de 2023 en Bridgeport, el alcalde en ejercicio de siete mandatos, Joe Ganim, obtuvo una estrecha victoria por 251 votos contra su rival, John Gomes.

Aunque Gomes venció a Ganim en las urnas, fue aplastado por el alcalde en el voto ausente, 1,545 a 851, según resultados no oficiales.

Cuatro días después de las elecciones, Gomes publicó un video en la página de Facebook de su campaña, en el que se ve a una mujer arrojando papeles en una urna de voto ausente afuera del Centro de Gobierno en Bridgeport.

La Comisión Estatal de Ejecución de Elecciones votó a favor de abrir una investigación en expansión y revisar todos los votos en ausencia emitidos. La Comisión dijo que recibió al menos cuatro quejas de ciudadanos y dos referencias del Departamento de Policía de Bridgeport, sobre el posible uso indebido de las papeletas de voto ausente, incluida su distribución en complejos de viviendas para personas mayores.

Mientras tanto, se pidió a un juez de Bridgeport que decida bloquear la certificación de la victoria de Ganim después de que Gomes presentara un caso pidiendo a un juez que ordenara una nueva elección.

“En este momento, hay una nube negra que se cierne sobre Bridgeport”, dijo Gomes a los periodistas en una conferencia de prensa en la sede de su campaña el lunes pasado.

Esto es lo que está sucediendo después de las elecciones primarias de la ciudad.

Un vídeo muestra a una mujer depositando papeles en una urna de voto ausente. La campaña de Gomes afirma que ella es partidaria de Ganim y empleada de la ciudad.

La campaña de Gomes alega que la mujer en el video es Wanda Geter-Pataky, empleada de la ciudad y vicepresidenta del Comité Municipal Demócrata.

También fue una de las tres personas contra las cuales la SEEC recomendó posibles cargos después de que una investigación revelara el uso indebido de votos ausentes en 2019. Esa investigación concluyó en junio, pero el fiscal principal del Estado no ha tomado la decisión de procesar a Geter-Pataky o a las otras dos personas todavía.

CT Mirror no ha podido verificar de forma independiente la identidad de la mujer en el vídeo y Geter-Pataky no ha respondido a múltiples solicitudes de comentarios.

La policía está investigando la mala conducta electoral y la filtración del video.

El Departamento de Policía de Bridgeport ha confirmado que está “investigando activamente información sobre una posible mala conducta basada en un video que apareció en las redes sociales”. También están investigando si una falla en el sistema de gestión de videos de la ciudad llevó a la publicación del video.

La campaña de Ganim no respondió a preguntas específicas sobre el video, pero emitió un comunicado el domingo pasado diciendo que “todo el asunto ha sido enviado a la policía de Bridgeport para su investigación”.

La mayor parte de la declaración se centró en el hecho de que se filtró el vídeo de vigilancia de la ciudad y no en las acusaciones de fraude electoral.

Ganim, que actualmente busca su octavo mandato, cumplió siete años de prisión entre su quinto y sexto mandato. Fue condenado por corrupción pública en 2003 y puesto en libertad en 2010. Se desempeñó como alcalde desde 1991 hasta su condena y luego fue reelegido en 2015.

Lamont ha expresado su preocupación y los Republicanos criticaron a los Demócratas por permanecer callados.

El presidente del Partido Republicano de Connecticut, Ben Proto emitió un comunicado esta semana criticando a los Demócratas por estar “desconcertados”.

“Donde hay humo hay fuego”, escribió Proto. “Yo diría que el humo es en realidad un infierno en toda regla que ha atrapado a los Demócratas, como prueba de que regularmente intentan socavar nuestras elecciones para su propio beneficio”.

Los Demócratas observan con inquietud cómo se desarrollan los acontecimientos en Bridgeport, uno de los bastiones del partido.

El Gobernador Ned Lamont dijo que el video es alarmante por dos motivos: ambos cuestionan la legitimidad de las primarias de Bridgeport y se suman al profundo cinismo que Donald J. Trump ha alentado sobre la integridad de las elecciones estadounidenses, después de perder la presidencia en 2020.

“Se ha convertido en una forma de arte”: los votos ausentes fueron el símbolo de los problemas electorales de Bridgeport durante los últimos cinco años.

Si bien anular una elección es poco común, ya ha sucedido antes.

El año pasado, un juez ordenó una nueva primaria Demócrata para un puesto de representante estatal en Bridgeport. El Tribunal Superior de Bridgeport tomó esa decisión debido a irregularidades en el voto ausente, que ha llegado a definir las elecciones de la ciudad.

En 2019, Ganim obtuvo una estrecha victoria contra la Representante Estatal Marilyn Moore. Moore había ganado la noche de las elecciones, sin embargo Ganim ganó las elecciones después de que se contaron los votos ausentes.

Según Moore, Geter-Pataky se ha jactado en las reuniones del Comité Municipal Demócrata de que “nadie es elegido sin que Wanda Geter haciendo votos en ausencia”.

Denise Solano, candidata al Concejo Municipal de Bridgeport que presentó una de las denuncias para esta elección ante la SEEC, dijo que cuando llamó a la puerta de un residente, la mujer le dijo a Solano que Geter-Pataky ya había estado para llenar su boleta.

“[Geter-Pataky] siempre viene y lo llena por mí, y de hecho siempre llamo a mi vecina y ella lo llena por nosotros dos y se los lleva”, supuestamente le dijo la mujer a Solano.

La ley de Connecticut restringe quién puede manejar los votos en ausencia. Las boletas de voto en ausencia solo pueden ser devueltas por el solicitante de la boleta, un miembro de la familia, agentes de policía, funcionarios electorales locales o alguien que esté cuidando a una persona enferma o físicamente discapacitada que recibió una boleta de voto en ausencia.

“Se ha convertido en una forma de arte”, dijo Christopher L. Caruso, ex-representante estatal de Bridgeport.

Fairfield Metro is one of the newest stations on the Metro-North’s New Haven line, having opened in 2011. The area around it is rapidly becoming a case study in transit-oriented development. This kind of development has been suggested as a solution to curbing climate change, while simultaneously helping connect residents more closely with their neighborhoods. Advocates say it cuts emissions, bringing residents closer to a train station as a central hub and relieving them from dependence on cars.

That’s a big deal for commuters in Fairfield County who rely on Interstate 95 — recently named the most congested stretch of interstate in the United States.

Advocates say transit-oriented development could be a good solution if done right. But in order for it to succeed, they say it’ll need to be both affordable and environmentally sustainable. Building in wetlands like the area around Fairfield Metro requires infrastructure that can mitigate the effects of climate change and reduce the impact of wastewater on a vulnerable environment.

Transit-oriented development and climate resilience

Gail Robinson is a real estate agent for the neighborhood of Black Rock, technically part of Bridgeport, the state’s largest city, but served by the Fairfield Metro train station across the town line. She’s also the president of the Ash Creek Conservation Association, and in that role, she’s one of the most vocal advocates for the environmentally sensitive wetlands that surround the train station.

WSHU met with Robinson at a coffee shop so close to the station that we could watch the trains go by on the tracks and hear announcements from the loudspeaker. Trains stopped and released crowds of commuters as we talk — most headed toward their cars at the station’s massive parking lot, but some set out on foot.

Robinson showed a printed dossier full of details on a flurry of similar-looking new apartment complexes that have been built or are under construction within a few blocks from the station with more proposed in both Fairfield and Bridgeport.

“It’s all generations moving in there,” she said. “All different ages, but it’s really popular with young professional people. They’ll spend $2,000-$3,000 a month on an apartment and not think twice about it.”

Ash Creek is the body of water that separates Bridgeport and Fairfield. She said, wearing her conservation hat, the ongoing developments concern her. One, for example, called the Crossings at Fairfield Metro, is being built just across Ash Creek Boulevard from the train station.

“It’s being built on a spit of land that’s directly on the Ash Creek tidal estuary,” she said. “We’ve been concerned for a while with that land.”

Ash Creek draws its name from the day the British burned Fairfield to the ground during the Revolutionary War, ashes from the fires settled in the creek. It’s also the last remaining saltwater marsh in Bridgeport.

“It’s only about four feet deep,” she said. “When the tide is down, it’s mostly a mud flat.”

Ash Creek faces the Fairfield Metro train station along the appropriately-named Ash Creek Boulevard. The land slopes up near the train station, rising away from the tidal marsh to an elevated street. A wide stretch of long, low, marshy trees span out from the creek up to the station. (There’s a walking trail back there, it’s beautiful, but its entrance is not well-marked from the street.)

“It’s out of the flood zone, because it’s up high enough,” Robinson said. “But over time, and particularly with storm surges, that land could get vulnerable.”

Then, Robinson adds, there’s the toll these new complexes will put on Fairfield and Bridgeport’s infrastructures. The Crossings at Fairfield Metro will add nearly 700 new apartments, meaning the town of Fairfield will have to put in a new sewer pipe. Robinson says both cities will have to strengthen their infrastructure to handle the new load.

“Can we handle it?” Robinson asks. “We’re in the process of having to replace an aging wastewater plant in Black Rock. And if all of this sewer water is going to that plant that’s aging and beyond capacity now, then what’s going to happen? Because when it gets a lot of rainfall right now … they have to dump the raw wastewater into Black Rock Harbor.”

The conservation group Save the Sound gave Black Rock Harbor a “D-” for its bacteria count in its most recent Long Island Sound Report Card last year.

“Bridgeport is a combined sewer overflow community,” said Bill Lucey, who holds the title of Soundkeeper with the group. “That means when it rains, the stormwater drains mix with the sewage mains. So what ends up happening if you have too much rain, the sewage treatment plants are legally allowed to open up the side tunnels and side culverts, and have raw sewage mixed with rainwater go right into Black Rock Harbor, for example.”

“People are dying for something reasonably priced”

Three new complexes have appeared near the train station in recent years — one to the north, one to the west, one to the south. All are easily within walking distance of the platforms.

The Crossings at Fairfield Metro is the largest of the proposed developments. One building is already under construction. Eventually, the sprawling complex will include nearly 700 apartments, a hotel, an eight-story concourse building and more than 40,000 square feet of office space. That’s based on an ambitious expansion of the project from the developers, Accurate Builders, in March.

Eighty of those units will be below market rate, a fact the developers highlighted as a way for the town to fulfill its requirements under 8-30g, a state law meant to encourage a minimum amount of affordable housing.

Eighty units is significantly more than is offered in other nearby new developments, Robinson said. Another four developments have been proposed, mostly in Bridgeport, and none have offered plans for any affordable housing. But she said those 80 units won’t solve the need.

“People are dying for something reasonably priced,” she said. When Robinson puts up a listing she considers “reasonably priced,” she said she gets about 60 applications. That tells her that 80 new affordable housing units isn’t enough to meet demand.

“Affordable housing” means the homeowner pays 30% or less of their income on housing-related costs, including mortgage or rent, taxes, insurance and utilities. Only 3% of all housing in Fairfield meets that definition as measured by the standards of 8-30g, far less than the 10% the state wants from all cities and towns. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Fairfield is $2,800 a month. (By comparison, Bridgeport — which has a vastly lower median income — has about 20% affordable housing, by far the most of any municipality in Fairfield County. If you want a two-bedroom apartment there, it’ll set you back $1,800 a month on average.)

Some quick math: if you’re spending $3,000 a month on rent, the amount Gail Robinson said her young clients “don’t think twice about,” you’d better be making at least $108,000 a year as a household in order to live comfortably. That’s not factoring in utilities and other costs.

At the time that Fairfield Metro was under construction more than a decade ago, Metro-North also had plans for another new station on Bridgeport’s East Side, a relatively lower-income area. It would be called “Barnum,” after the circus founder and former Bridgeport mayor P.T. Barnum, who built up the city’s East Side. It was planned to open in 2021, but the project eventually stalled in 2019. (Advocates had said it would be an opportunity to support transit-oriented development in that area.)

“There’s a huge movement for transit-oriented development to be more affordable so that it can benefit the folks who have been historically more marginalized from city centers or even other neighborhoods,” said Nyla Holland, a researcher with the Urban Institute. “But transit-oriented development can also offer market rate rents, and have really high prices which can price out those with lower incomes and prioritize more affluent residents moving in.”

Holland said redlining and racist infrastructure practices have physically marginalized low-income communities out of city centers, where transportation hubs are traditionally found.

“Transit-oriented development has the ability to create greater access to employment, education, and more,” she said. “So those folks who have been excluded from that can access career opportunities.”

But she adds she’s too often seen a practice she calls “climate gentrification.”

“So you have climate friendly cities,” she said, “Cities that are prioritizing energy efficiency, transit-oriented development, and folks really want to move there. And they’re willing to pay the higher prices for rents that can price out those with lower incomes who would really benefit from living near transit hub.”

Holland said one way to solve this problem is to incentivize developers to include affordable housing in their plans, just like how Connecticut’s state law incentivized Accurate to include 80 affordable housing units. But not all communities, including Fairfield, have seen Connecticut’s affordable housing law as a solution.

Fairfield First Selectwoman Brenda Kupchick rejected the idea that only 3% of the town’s housing is affordable. She said that’s a shortcoming of 8-30g.

“We have a lot of two and three family units in Fairfield that landlords rent out,” she said. “They don’t count, we don’t keep track of them, because they’re not under our purview. But we know they exist.”

“There are properties we can do the exact same thing with”

Last week, the town of Fairfield marked a first: a groundbreaking for four new homes built by the Georgia-based nonprofit Habitat for Humanity. They went up in the Tunxis Hill neighborhood, which borders Bridgeport. The organization has built 281 homes in Fairfield County, but these were their first affordable homes in the town of Fairfield.

“It is not due to the lack of need for affordable housing in the town,” Habitat for Humanity of Coastal Fairfield County director Carolyn Vermont wrote in a letter announcing the groundbreaking, reiterating that only three percent of the town’s housing is affordable. “It is because we have never been able to obtain property on which to build.”

The town of Fairfield is providing the four lots, which will be developed through a 75-year renewing land lease.

At the groundbreaking, alongside Vermont and others from Habitat for Humanity, Fairfield First Selectman Brenda Kupchick said she grew up in the neighborhood and played in the woods around the houses.

“And when the owner of this property came to me and said, ‘First Selectwoman, we’d like to buy a piece of the Tunxis Hill Woods and knock down this house and build a house to sell,’ I said, ‘well, how about if we buy your property and we decide to do something different with it?”’

Fairfield established an affordable housing trust fund in 2018, which paid for the purchase of the property. The fund adds on a fee to permits for all housing and developments, allowing the town to then buy its own homes and sell them at affordable rates.

Kupchick said she wants to keep the project going across the town.

“There are properties in our town that we can do the exact same thing with,” she said at the Habitat for Humanity groundbreaking. “And to me, it’s not just giving affordable housing but actually an opportunity to build roots in a community, especially in a community as great as Fairfield.”

For example, she said officials are working with former Navy housing that was given to the town nearly 20 years ago. But she says she doesn’t see a need to prioritize affordable housing around train stations.

“My dream would be that we would have affordable units scattered throughout the entire town,” she said. “You can live in any neighborhood that you choose. So if you do have a car and you want to live farther away from the train station or the bus station, then you should be able to have that opportunity.”

Habitat for Humanity said the four houses mark a new opportunity for Fairfield. But four units may not satisfy the need at a time when real estate agents like Robinson say a single opening leads to 60 applications. And the Fairfield Metro station is a nearly 40-minute walk away, making this property less than optimal for transit-oriented development. But advocates say the model can be ported out across Connecticut and other areas with a lack of affordable housing.

State Senator Tony Hwang, also at the event, said the entire state has a critical housing need.

“We’ve got to get there,” he said. “This is four of hundreds that need to be built. But the solution is the model here. It’s a model of collaborative effort and creativity where local governments, state governments, private sector and federal government get involved to collaborate … It is not private developers looking at a market valuation. This is out of faith, love and a need in our community.”

This story was first published Sept. 19, 2023 by WSHU.

As an economist, I’ve grown increasingly concerned that Gov. Ned Lamont and his budgetary mouthpiece John Beckham suffer from a shared delusion about what is happening in Connecticut.

Do they even look at actual data about what matters for our taxpayers? It isn’t that hard. Just recently, the U.S. Census Bureau pointed out that Connecticut was one of 17 states where the median household has fallen.

Beckham was recently quoted bemoaning a “decade of sluggish economies and budgets” in years gone by. The truth is that Connecticut’s economy is more sluggish now than it has been since 2004. The numbers don’t lie: Connecticut’s GDP per person was 1.2% smaller in 2022 than it was in 2019. The typical Connecticut taxpayer is worse off now than when Lamont took office.

That dismal performance continued in the opening months of 2023, when our economy shrank by roughly half a percent compared to the start of 2022. Like a couple carnival barkers, Lamont and Beckham have been throwing around all kinds of distractions, like meager tax cuts, in an effort to convince everyone that the emperor has beautiful economic clothes. Connecticut families know the truth.

Lamont is not building an even modestly successful economy. He’s more in the tradition of former Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who exited the governor’s office with an economy that did not improve at all over eight years (GDP per capita was basically flat). Say what you will about former Gov. Dannel Malloy, at least the economy grew by roughly 4% during his term.

How can we explain Lamont’s ongoing disaster on the economic front? His entire approach to policy is inconsistent, incoherent and shallow. I’ll provide an example. Lamont and Beckham seem to have some kind of ax to grind with public higher education. In a recent letter to Connecticut State Colleges and Universities leadership , Beckham doubled down on a plan to slash state funding for college students by roughly $110 million. Beckham’s office tends to arbitrarily and obsessively dwell upon past enrollments in public higher education. He’s seeking a consultant who will, in all likelihood, advocate for evisceration of our public universities.

The message is clear, Lamont and Beckham are enemies of Connecticut’s public higher education. It’s a weird hill to die on. Connecticut’s constitution, itself, establishes a unique commitment to funding of public higher education. But even more bizarre is Lamont’s willingness to pour millions of taxpayer dollars on unfathomable pet projects. For example, last summer, Greenwich’s Hudson Bay Capital received $1.4 million in “manufacturing assistance.” What does this company manufacture? They’re a hedge fund, and we’re not talking about the lawn ornament type of hedge.

Not to be outdone, Sikorsky arranged $75 million in corporate welfare early last year. A few months later, they lost a $1.3 billion contract to supply the next generation of helicopters to the U.S Army. A bit of advice, if you see Lamont at a roulette table in eastern Connecticut and he bets on green, I would not recommend following him with your own money.

It gets even worse when we consider what is happening in New London. There, Lamont has tripled the amount of taxpayer money he’s dumping into the Thames River at the behest of a European company. To be fair, said company is also working with Eversource, plausibly the most hated enterprise in our state. There are growing risks that all this $300+ million in largesse will meet with failure. The primary corporate beneficiary of our taxpayer dollars has seen its share price collapse by 40% since the start of this year.

We have enough evidence to understand the disastrous Lamont “economic formula:” squander almost unlimited funding on dubious or faltering projects so long as there is some kind of profiteer involved. Simultaneously, abandon Connecticut’s constitutional commitment to funding public higher education. When you consider this pattern, there really is no mystery when it comes to the recent decline in our state’s economy.

The Democratic party must be honest with itself when it comes to Lamont’s economic mismanagement. They can learn from what happened after Rell’s fumble on the economic front. The other party took over.

Brendan Cunningham is a Professor in Eastern Connecticut State University’s department of Economics and Finance, the Treasurer for CSU-AAUP, and a member of the Faculty Advisory Committee to the Board of Regents.

The presidents of two Connecticut hospitals owned by Prospect Medical Holdings told a gathering of state legislators Tuesday that their financial situation is dire, that they are struggling to pay bills and, if a deal to sell Prospect’s Connecticut hospitals to Yale New Haven Health is not approved, the facilities may not remain financially viable, according to people in attendance.

Waterbury Hospital Chief Executive Officer Justin Lundbye and Eastern Connecticut Health Network President Deborah Weymouth met privately with Gov. Ned Lamont before gathering with about 30 concerned lawmakers from Waterbury, Manchester and surrounding towns. Prospect owns Waterbury, Manchester Memorial and Rockville General hospitals.

Hospital executives painted a gloomy picture of their finances and urged the state to move quickly on approving a sale of the facilities to Yale New Haven Health, according to legislators who were present at the meeting.

Yale announced in 2022 that it had signed an agreement with Prospect to acquire the hospitals. Completion of the sale and a certificate of need is pending. Hospital officials have said they are worried about the length of time the state has taken to review and approve the sale.

Sen. Saud Anwar, who with Majority Leader Jason Rojas organized the legislators’ meeting Tuesday, said hospital executives expressed concern about their “dire” financial situation and are having trouble paying vendors and physicians under contract to provide care at the facilities.

Prospect Medical facilities were recently hit by a cyberattack.

“They were talking about almost getting to the point where they’re having difficulty paying for bed linens, things like that,” said Anwar, D-South Windsor, who is co-chair of the legislature’s Public Health Committee and a physician under contract at Manchester Memorial. “Between the cyberattack and the current financial situation … they are going through a very significant financial challenge.

Representatives from Yale New Haven Health and Prospect Medical also attended the lawmakers’ meeting, which was held in the Old Appropriations Room on the third floor of the Capitol, Anwar said.

Yale raised concerns about investing in facilities with outdated computer systems. An official with Prospect said the company was dealing with dual issues of financial challenges and recovering from the cyberattack, Anwar said.

“I know [some of] the hospital doctors have not been getting paid. Many of them are planning to leave. And then there are other situations where there have been the limitations on lab equipment and chemicals used for labs.”

Anwar said the CEOs also warned that if the sale falls through, the hospitals would not remain financially viable or functional.

“With their lack of funding and capacity with the cyberattack, their survival may be impacted if the state delays this sale or [approves it] with contingencies that are going to make Yale walk away,” he said. “The fear we have at this point is if, God forbid, something like that happens … then the deal will fall through and the hospitals will have to close, which would mean thousands of jobs would be lost and hundreds of thousands of people in our state would be without health care.”

The Connecticut Mirror reported last week that another Connecticut hospital CEO, citing discussions with Lundbye, told Lamont that Waterbury Hospital owes vendors more than $40 million and that Yale executives are concerned about “deteriorating conditions” at Prospect’s three Connecticut facilities.

Yale officials “have begun to question whether acquiring Manchester and Waterbury hospitals remains a prudent business decision,” Pat Charmel, CEO of Griffin Health in Derby, wrote to Lamont in an August email.

Charmel’s message came just days after the cyberattack.

As he was leaving the state Capitol on Tuesday, Lundbye confirmed in a short interview that he met with governor and several legislators.

“The governor wanted to talk about health care issues in general and also about the cyberattack and what long-term effects there could be on the hospitals,” Lundbye said.

The cyberattack began in early August and lasted for more than six weeks, forcing the hospitals to divert patients, cancel surgeries and care for fewer people because of staffing issues.

Lundbye said that although computer systems are working again, the hospitals face “a long-term recovery” from the attack.

Weymouth could not be reached for comment, and ECHN spokeswoman Nina Kruse did not return calls.

Lamont said hospital officials told him they are eager to close the deal with Yale New Haven, reassuring insurers that revenues would go toward patient care. Concerns had been raised about how money was being spent.

“Revenues at these hospitals that should be going back to patient care seem to be siphoned by the equity owners to pay off bond holders,” Lamont said. “I’m very hopeful we can get the [certificate of need] process done expeditiously, and we can get Yale New Haven to do the deal.”

Lamont declined to call the fiscal situation a crisis.

“I think they are OK for the near term, but they definitely would like some clarity on the [sale], then the insurance guys would feel more confident” in paying reimbursements, he said. “I think you are going to see some real clarity in the next 60 days.”

Prospect Medical has a troubled history. In 2018, the company took out a $1.12 billion loan and used the funds to pay its executives and shareholders a $457 million dividend, CBS News reported. To pay back the loan, Prospect sold the land and buildings from hospitals it owns in Connecticut, California and Pennsylvania to a real estate investment trust, then leased back those hospitals from the trust. In Pennsylvania, the lease-back agreement meant one health care system was on the hook for $35 million a year in rent, CBS reported.

Deidre Gifford, executive director of Connecticut’s Office of Health Strategy, has defended the state’s timetable for reviewing the certificate of need.

“There is a statutory process,” she told the CT Mirror last week. “We have met our timelines on the cost and market impact review. We prepared an initial draft; we shared it with the transacting parties. They had 30 days to send us comments. We have just received the comments back from the parties. The next steps are, we have, by statute, 60 days to incorporate any changes. … We have not missed any of the statutory timelines.”

State Rep. Jeffrey Currey, D-Manchester, who attended Tuesday’s meeting with other legislators, said hospital officials were trying to “convey a sense of urgency to get the sale completed.”

“They outlined several issues around cash flow and [payments to] vendors,” Currey said. “They were pleading with us to do what we could to expedite the sale.”

Yale New Haven Health officials raised concerns about the software at Prospect-owned hospitals following the cyberattack, Anwar said. The computer system was described as outdated.

“They’re stressed about the cyberattack. There needs to be a recovery plan,” he said. “Because the computer system for the hospitals is too old, the recovery plan should include upgrading the computer system for functionality. But they can’t do that, because [the Office of Health Strategy] has not made a decision [about the sale]. So it’s illegal for Yale to help them.”

Representatives with Prospect Medical “claim they don’t have enough resources” to fund the upgrades, he added.

Officials from Yale and Prospect could not be reached for comment late Tuesday.

Rep. Jason Doucette, D-Manchester, said hospital officials were distressed about their finances.

“There’s no question things have gotten pretty perilous at ECHN, mostly because of the cyberattack, but also because Prospect is having serious a serious cash flow problem,” Doucette said.

“We need to get the merger approved, because we want Yale here in Manchester. We seem to be at a point where the problems are starting to compromise patient care.”

“Time is of the essence,” added Rep. Cristin McCarthy Vahey, D-Fairfield, co-chair of the Public Health Committee. “What has been clear, and what was even more clear today, was the compounding impact of the cybersecurity event on the situation at the hospitals. That really makes it even more vital that they’re able to move forward in a way that allows the patients of Connecticut to be cared for.”

Prospect Medical owns hospitals in California, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Connecticut. In his email to the governor, Charmel said the company’s “long awaited” debt refinancing was supposed to “improve liquidity and provide working capital” to hospitals like Waterbury, Manchester and Rockville, but “none of the proceeds found their way to Connecticut.”

“In previous discussions and correspondence about conditions at Waterbury, I told you that Justin [Lundbye] was stretching out his vendors (many of them local), and the hospital’s accounts payable were growing,” Charmel wrote. “They have continued to grow and are now in excess of $40,000,000. Many vendors have Waterbury and Manchester hospitals on credit hold and are refusing to do additional business with the hospitals until AP balances (vendor receivables) are paid down.” 

In an emailed statement last week, Lundbye said $25 million to $30 million had been provided by Prospect to its Connecticut-owned hospitals since June, when the debt refinancing was completed, but he did not say how the money was used or whether it went toward vendor payments. He declined to say how much money was still owed to vendors.

Charmel warned that the financial troubles could affect the sale of Prospect’s Connecticut hospitals to Yale New Haven Health.

“We know that Waterbury, Manchester and Rockville hospitals will only get relief when their proposed acquisition by the Yale New Haven Health System is finalized,” he wrote to Lamont. “I have not spoken to [Yale] CEO Chris O’Connor recently, but I am aware that Chris and his board are concerned about deteriorating conditions at Waterbury and Manchester hospitals and have begun to question whether acquiring Manchester and Waterbury hospitals remains a prudent business decision.”

Yale New Haven officials said last week that they remain “committed to the communities surrounding Waterbury and ECHN.”

“While we cannot speculate on what specifically is happening with ECHN and Waterbury Hospital, we are working with them to understand the issues and their implications for patient care and operations,” said Dana Marnane, a Yale spokeswoman. “Our acquisition of Prospect Medical Holdings’ Connecticut health systems is pending approval from the state of Connecticut, and we remain deeply committed to the communities surrounding both Waterbury Health and ECHN.”

Anwar said lawmakers will relay concerns expressed at Tuesday’s meeting to Lamont.

“I’m worried about the well being of the patients in the community and also the wellbeing of all people employed by these hospital systems,” he said.

A partisan fight Tuesday over how to respond to the unfolding Bridgeport absentee-ballot investigation enlivened a special session whose major issue once was expected to be a bill to advance the date of Connecticut’s presidential primary.

Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly for a bill that authorizes and funds an elections monitor for Bridgeport, but the Democratic majorities rebuffed Republican efforts to immediately make permanent changes to elections law, including mandatory prison time for election fraud.

Passage came on votes of 136-2 in the House and 35-0 in the Senate. Among other things, the measure moves the 2024 presidential primary from the last Tuesday in April to the first. The elections monitor had been previously authorized in the budget, but an error necessitated a new vote.

The debates in the House and Senate were a prelude to what House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said will be a deeper exploration during the regular 2024 session into ways to address election fraud and ballot security, issues that Donald J. Trump has made central to contemporary American politics.

Republicans suggested the voter fraud was broader in Connecticut than elections enforcement officials say is the case, but they also took care to keep a certain distance from Trump and his insistence that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“I’m not going to go so far as to say elections have been stolen, or there’s tens of thousands of votes at stake here,” said Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott. “But the truth is, none of us really know. None of us really know.”

Inspiration for the heated debate came from Bridgeport, Connecticut’s largest city and a Democratic stronghold with the last of old-school political machines and a greater reliance on absentee ballots than any other city in the state.

Security video in Bridgeport captured a woman repeatedly and furtively depositing absentee ballots into a drop box outside the city’s Government Center prior to the Democratic mayoral primary won by Mayor Joseph P. Ganim. For the second time in consecutive primaries, Ganim’s margin of victory came in absentee voting.

A Superior Court judge is currently weighing a request for a new election, and police and the State Elections Enforcement Commission are investigating whether the woman violated the state’s strict laws on how absentee ballots are obtained, filled out and returned.

Violations are punishable by up to five years in prison, but jail time is rare.

In a Stamford case involving the former Democratic chair, a judge recently rejected a prosecutor’s call for a five-year sentence on a 14-count conviction stemming from fraudulently obtained absentee ballots, a crime caught at the polls on Election Day. The defendant got no prison time.

“I think that’s where you change the penalties and make it that they can’t give a suspended sentence, that get caught doing the crime, you’re going to do the time,” said Sen. Minority Leader Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford.

In the House, Ritter ruled during debate that any changes to penalties were beyond the scope of the one-day special session, and he joined other Democrats in opposing an immediate ban on absentee-ballot drop boxes.

“Do you take a wrecking ball approach and ban everything for everybody else?” Ritter said prior to the debate. “Or do you try to use more of a scalpel approach in dealing with a situation that we all agree is serious?”

House Republicans did not challenge Ritter’s ruling. 

In the Senate, the proposal for a mandatory prison sentence was allowed to come to a vote, then rejected on a 22-12 party-line vote.

“What we saw on the video is what the problem is,” Kelly said. “It’s the harvesting of ballots, the pressure that’s put on people. And that needs to be curtailed so that we can reaffirm the trust and confidence that people have in the system. That’s our job as elected officials.”

Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, said the Republicans were grandstanding by proposing quick changes in criminal and election law in the earliest weeks of the investigation in Bridgeport.

“I think what we have seen is, is a great deal of excessive rhetoric from the minority party today on that issue, jumping ahead of whatever an investigation might reveal,” Looney said. “And I can certainly say that the majority party is every bit as concerned about election integrity.”

Democrats also rejected Republican proposals to ban drop boxes.

Republicans insisted the drop boxes made fraud easier, though if the woman in Bridgeport had fraudulently obtained absentee ballots, she still could have deposited them in the U.S. mail.

One irony of the call for their abolition is that all four drop boxes employed in Bridgeport were covered by security cameras. If the challenged ballots were mailed, there would be no video evidence. 

Inherent in most debates over combating fraud is the tension between security that protects ballot integrity and inconveniences that limit ballot access.

“We’re always balancing those rights of individuals versus the reality, which is some people will cross the line, some people may have violated state statute, and they may be punished for that,” Ritter said.

But he said that the drop boxes are the best way for voters to ensure that their absentee ballots have made it to town hall, and a statewide ban — or even one focused on Bridgeport — would be overkill, he said. A ballot mailed the weekend before the election might not arrive by Election Day.

“I don’t know what you get from banning a ballot box in Pomfret, Conn. I don’t know what that accomplishes,” Ritter said. “All you’re doing is disenfranchising those individuals.”