Thursday roundup

by: ctblogger

Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 12:24:42 PM EST

The latest:

• CT Mirror: "Projected deficit for next fiscal year is $1.1 billion"
  

  State analysts are projecting a $1.1 billion state budget deficit in the fiscal year beginning July 1, a gap roughly one-third the size of the record-setting shortfall that Connecticut's governor and legislature tried to close just two years ago, sources said early Thursday.

  The deficit for the coming year is sandwiched between the $365 million deficit Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's administration reported Wednesday for the current fiscal year and a long-range forecast for another gap of about $1 billion in 2014-15.

  But since the governor and legislature must balance the current books and craft a new two-year spending plan this spring, that means they must wipe nearly $2.5 billion in real and projected red ink off the state's books before the 2013 session ends next June.



• Pelto: "Malloy's budget chief admits to $365 million state budget deficit
  

  You are reading that correctly - despite the Governor denying this reality 48 hours ago, Secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, Ben Barnes, is addressing a legislative committee today and will admit that the state budget deficit is at least $365 million dollars.

  In the days leading up to the election, the Malloy Administration stuck to their claim that the state budget deficit was $60 million.

  Just three days after the election, the number they'd admit too increased by another $50 million.

  But as Keith Phaneuf wrote in the CTMirror, and as was reported here at Wait, What?, the true deficit was at least $300 to $350 million.

  A state budget of $365 million is, as Phaneuf writes, "nearly double the level needed to compel Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to prepare a deficit-mitigation plan, according to written testimony from Malloy's budget chief."

  Barnes' told the Legislature that, "All told, these changes result in a projected deficit of $365 million."

  Barnes was silent on why the Malloy administration provided State Comptroller Kevin Lembo with different, and inappropriately more rosy numbers just days ago.



• CT News Junkie: "Income Gap Widens"
  

  The gap between Connecticut's wealthy and poor is the second largest in the nation behind only New York, according to a report   by Connecticut Voices for Children and the Connecticut Association for Human Services.

  Comparing income over the past three decades with data broken up in 20-percent increments or "fifths," the two nonprofit agencies discovered the gap between the richest and poorest in the state has grown and that it is the fastest growing gap among all states.

  "What was once a place with prosperous middle and working classes who were within shouting distance of the upper class now stands as the epitome of rising inequality in America," the report says. "The change has been drastic."



• Gary Holder-Winfield for Mayor of New Haven 2013?
  

  Less than a year before the next election, two politicians have already announced the formation of exploratory committees for next year's mayoral race against 10-term Mayor John DeStefano Jr.

  Ward 10 Alderman Justin Elicker FES '10 SOM '10 and Connecticut Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield said that they may contest what will be DeStefano's 12th mayoral election. Elicker, an environmental consultant and two-term East Rock alderman, and Holder-Winfield, a former Newhallville ward co-chair and part of New Haven's state delgation, are both familiar names to New Haven residents who threaten to end the nearly 20 years DeStefano has spent in office.