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Lobster season to close early this year
On the wharf, hundreds of lobster traps are piled high, waiting to be dropped into Long Island Sound. Standing on the Stonington Dock, Richie Maderia rattles off the list of regulations that affect the way he and his sons do business – trap limits, the size of the...
Towns continue to use wasteful state contract for storm cleanup
Connecticut towns continue to use a state storm cleanup contract despite a Raising Hale investigation last year exposing at least $20 million in waste. The state contract with the Florida-based company AshBritt is an option open to cities and towns, but not one they...
Manufacturing A Business-Friendly Environment
More than half of Connecticut manufacturers have been invited to move their business to another state, a Monday report entitled the Connecticut Manufacturing Industry Survey found. Of the 211 manufacturers surveyed, 52 percent stated they had been “recruited to...
Energy efficiency program cited for inaccurate count of jobs created
A February audit of Connecticut’s energy efficiency and conservation programs found job data “was inaccurate and unsupported.” Auditors examined data from Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and released their findings in February. The...
Is ‘global awareness’ to blame for Connecticut’s low reading scores?
Two researchers at the Pioneer Institute in Boston think so. They explain how Connecticut fell behind in reading in their Wall Street Journal op-ed questioning the wisdom of the Common Core. This academic-lite approach has been tried before—and it failed. In 1998,...
Predictable Results from a Union-Run School
Most people who have ever taken a physics course know Newton’s law, which states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Similarly, most people who follow state and local politics recognize that every governmental action has (typically) negative...
Despite decline in unemployment, fewer working in Connecticut
State officials say the job market is improving, but the number of people working in Connecticut has actually fallen every month for the past two years. While the unemployment rate has come down from its peak of 9.4 percent in 2010 to 8 percent last month, Connecticut...
Enough for a Rolex: Departing SCSU athletics employee gets $36,015 payout
State auditors found a Southern Connecticut State University athletics employee received $36,015 for accrued leave upon termination. The auditors found the payment “was correctly calculated and adequately supported.” No surprise the state owes its...
Is DECD paying for ESPN’s escape from Adriaen’s Landing?
ESPN is illustrating a cautionary tale about “economic development” – in other words corporate welfare – by laying off employees in at least one Connecticut location while receiving incentives for “creating jobs” in another location. If the state really doesn’t have...
Assembly Should Tread Lightly on GMO’s
Yesterday Connecticut lawmakers passed a first of its kind piece of legislation that will require food containing genetically modified organisms-GMO- to be labeled as such before distribution. The vote passed with a 35-1 margin in the Senate. While the “green”...