Connecticut

“Sounds of Hope” ceremony honors domestic violence victims and survivors

Published

1 year ago

October 1, 2024

Press Room

“Sounds of Hope” ceremony honors domestic violence victims and survivors

A special ceremony was held at Long Wharf Pier to observe the start Domestic Violence Awareness month.

The ceremony was called “Sounds of Hope,” as attendants heard from multiple advocates against domestic violence.

Some of the advocates present included BH Care, the CT Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Umbrella Center for Domestic Violence Services.

Also present at the ceremony was Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D – CT) who spoke about his commitment to fight domestic violence on the federal level, along with New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker.

“To anyone that is in a situation of domestic violence, we also come together to say you are not alone and there is help available,” Mayor Elicker said.

At the event, the names of 26 lives lost to domestic violence were called out and attendants threw purple flowers into the Long Island Sound as each name was called.

In addition to remembering the victims and survivors of domestic violence, advocates also made a call for additional funding for services.

“Raising awareness is now more critical than ever, the funding stream for our programs supported by the Victims of Crime Act is nearly dry,” said Roberta Cook, President and CEO of BH Care.

Meghan Scanlon, president of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence said they will be asking for $3.3 million in the upcoming legislative session.

“I believe that Congress and the state of CT should be investing in issues that impact women, girls, children more so than they do right now,” Scanlon said.

Scanlon said the funding is necessary in order to continue providing the appropriate resources.

“Last year we had 19 intimate partner violence homicides in the state of CT, over the last 10 years we’ve averaged 14.”

Jessica Pizzano, director of victims services at Survivors of Homicide said if they do not receive the proper funding, their center could shut down in 2025.

“We’re one of the few programs in the country, one of the few as a whole, that provide secondary services to survivors so if we were no longer around there wouldn’t be any other resource for people to go to.”

Pizzano said her center is facing a budget cut of up to 70% in the upcoming fiscal year.

To report a Domestic Violence situation, you can contact CTsafeconnect.org or call 888-774-2900.

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Connecticut

CT officials focus on tax cuts as new election cycle starts

Published

11 hours ago

December 2, 2025

Press Room

CT officials focus on tax cuts as new election cycle starts

Republicans have staunchly defended unprecedented state efforts in recent years to shrink Connecticut’s massive legacy of pension debt, even though it’s leached billions from education, health care and other core programs in the process.

But the GOP has begun to modify that stance, willing to scale back that effort if — and only if — those dollars go back to middle-class households in the form of big tax cuts.

Citing high energy costs, inflation above federal targets and Congress cutting deeply into human services, Republicans say Connecticut families need more help badly now, but not through new state programs.

And with many Democrats already renewing their push for a new child-based income tax cut and the next state election less than 12 months away, the 2026 General Assembly session could be swamped with tax-cutting ideas.

GOP: CT households must benefit directly from big surpluses

“For my constituents, it’s about over-taxation,” House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, said during a floor debate last month. “We are seeing billions and billions of dollars flow into our coffers.”

The GOP leader was referring to the aggressive series of state budget caps that have generated unprecedented surpluses averaging more than $1.8 billion, or 8% to 9% of the General Fund, every year since 2017. About $4 billion from those bounties has been used to bolster budget reserves, but the bulk, about $10 billion, has been dedicated to whittling down the massive pension debt Connecticut amassed over seven decades prior to 2011.

The primary beneficiaries of those payments, Candelora said, involve tens of thousands of state employees, municipal teachers and retirees from those two fields.

“But what about the other 3.4 million people, the people that are telling us we can’t afford to continue to pay property taxes in the state of Connecticut?” he added. “I think we need to start looking at the people that are slipping into poverty, slipping into need, because everything in the state of Connecticut has become unaffordable.”

In late October, House Republicans called for a $700 increase in the state income tax credit that covers a portion of households’ municipal property tax bills.

With the potential to restore $500 million annually, all to the middle class, it would rival the 2023 income tax cuts ordered by Gov. Ned Lamont and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly for the most generous relief package in state history.

But it also would mean this fiscal year’s projected surplus — another big windfall projected at $2 billion — would be about 25% smaller. That means less to pay down pension debt, which still exceeds $33 billion, according to Lamont’s budget office, and isn’t projected to be eliminated until the mid-2040s.

But Candelora said Connecticut could afford a big tax cut and still make big annual inroads on its debt problem. The $10 billion in surplus funds its deposited into the pensions since 2020 were in addition to the more than $3 billion in required payments Connecticut makes annually through regular budgeting. Prior to 2020, Connecticut never had contributed surplus to its pensions.

And since Lamont and his fellow Democrats in the legislature already have diverted some funds away from surplus and into new spending, why couldn’t Republicans deflect some to cut taxes on households in need, the North Branford lawmaker added.

Lamont and Democrats dedicated $300 million from last fiscal year’s surplus to launch a new program to expand affordable child care. That initiative also has a claim on a portion of future surpluses.

And despite repeated warnings that Medicaid costs were exploding, Democrats underfunded the program by $284 million last fiscal year, effectively leaving the problem to be solved using surplus dollars.

“I think I’ve been dragged into this conversation unwillingly by the Democrats,” Candelora added.

House Republicans likely won’t be alone in supporting tax cuts.

Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, has “serious concerns” about redirecting any funds away from paying down a pension debt, but “if we’re going to do anything [else] with those funds … it needs to be returned to [households] in the form of tax relief.”

The GOP’s two gubernatorial contenders, former New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart and state Sen. Ryan Fazio of Greenwich, both agreed Connecticut can help its middle class and save diligently to reduce debt.

Given the huge budget surpluses Connecticut has reported since 2017, “it’s hard to not ask the question: Are we being overtaxed?” Stewart said.

And while she praised the bipartisan legislative effort eight years ago that helped Connecticut save more, stop tax hikes, and begin reducing debt, the former mayor added it’s still too expensive for many to live here.

“I see that every day,” she added. “Often times, both parents are working and they’re just scrounging by.”

“At some point, middle-class taxpayers are the forgotten people of Connecticut,” Fazio said, adding relief would provide an economic assist as well. “All the evidence suggests that income tax cuts spur more economic growth than other forms of tax cuts.”

Democrats have their own tax-cutting ideas

Republicans also won’t be the only ones putting tax-cut proposals on the table.

Many progressive and moderate Democrats in the General Assembly have been pushing for the past four years to create a permanent state income tax credit for low- and middle-income households with children.

The most popular plan, raised back in 2021 by then-Rep. Sean Scanlon, a Guilford Democrat who now serves as state comptroller, would provide $600 per child, up to $1,800 per household.

The United Way of Connecticut, another leader in the fight for a state child tax credit, vowed to continue the battle in September when it released its latest affordability analysis, showing a record-high 581,000 Connecticut households, about 40%, couldn’t afford a basic “survival” budget.

The United Way estimates it cost a family of four — two parents and two children — $116,000 to cover basic survival needs, including food, housing, utilities, child and health care and transportation in 2023.

Lamont’s budget spokesman, Chris Collibee, said the governor “will listen to any ideas that reduce taxes, increase taxpayers and make our state a more attractive place to live and work.”

Rep. Maria Horn, D-Salisbury, co-chairwoman of the tax-writing Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, said this week she anticipates many state tax relief proposals aimed at the middle class in the next session, especially since the GOP-led Congress focused the bulk of federal tax cuts it ordered last July on the nation’s wealthiest households.

“That creates a structure where the very wealthy are receiving a tax benefit and the middle and less privileged classes are not,” she said.

Can CT afford to cut taxes and bolster human services?

But both Horn and House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, warn frequently that any tax cuts must be sustainable. In other words, don’t promise so much relief it must be scaled back one year later if the economy slips.

And state legislators are more worried about budget stability now than perhaps any other time since they installed new caps eight years ago. That’s because Congress ordered more than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and other human service programs to help finance federal tax relief.

Connecticut expects to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in annual federal assistance, although the bulk of those cutbacks likely won’t take effect until 2027 or 2028.

Rep. Josh Elliott of Hamden, a progressive who is challenging Lamont for the 2026 Democratic gubernatorial nomination, said many lawmakers still want to put more dollars directly into working families’ hands.

But Elliott, a founder of the legislature’s Tax Equity Caucus, added tax relief is a good tool — but not the only one — to help families.

It does a family little good to save $700 on state income taxes if Connecticut cuts municipal aid so much that same household faces an $800 increase in town property taxes.

Similarly, it state budget policies drive up community college tuition, slash rental and winter energy assistance and ignore rising health insurance costs, then tax cuts help little or not at all.

“It’s not one or the other,” Elliott said. “It seems that there’s a hypocrisy on the part of the Republicans that they are only willing to affect [costs] with tax cuts.”

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Connecticut

Hunter Biden to face Connecticut bar suspension hearing this month

Published

23 hours ago

December 2, 2025

Press Room

Hunter Biden to face Connecticut bar suspension hearing this month

Hunter Biden will face a hearing later this month to determine whether he is suspended as a member of the Connecticut bar. Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden, was convicted on federal tax and gun charges in 2024. Following those convictions, he agreed to be disbarred in Washington, D.C., where he lives. Before he was sentenced, he received a sweeping pardon from his father. The …

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Connecticut

CBRE Negotiates $24.7M Sale of Office Building in Wilton, Connecticut

Published

1 day ago

December 1, 2025

Press Room

CBRE Negotiates .7M Sale of Office Building in Wilton, Connecticut

WILTON, CONN. — CBRE has negotiated the $24.7 million sale of a 221,070-square-foot office building in the southern coastal Connecticut city of Wilton. The two-story building at 50 Danbury Road is home to tenants such as AIG, ASML and Hartford Health Care. Jeff Dunne, Steve Bardsley and Travis Langer of CBRE represented the seller, a partnership that includes an entity managed by Taconic Capital Partners, in the transaction. Shawn Rosenthal and Jason Gaccione, also with CBRE, arranged acquisition financing on behalf of the buyer, Melrose Pfeiffer Holding LLC.

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