Success Story: Connecticut’s Crumbling Foundations Fund

By Lawrence Cook

December 3 @ 9:00 am

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Democratic senators from across the state praised a new report, which last week showed that Connecticut had spent more than $155 million to renovate 1,018 homes affected by crumbling foundations over the last several years.

To date, 2,368 claimants have been identified in 56 different Connecticut towns (about a third of the state), with an estimated total repair cost of $233.5 million. Most of the affected homes are located in Vernon, Tolland, Manchester, South Windsor, Stafford, Ellington, Willington, Coventry, Enfield and Somers.

The state has also spent $1 million to assess and repair 18 homes in Columbia, Hebron, with four pending claims in Marlborough, Lebanon and Norwich.

Revenue for crumbling foundation repairs comes from a combination of $150 million in state bonding and $55.2 million in fees collected from a $12 annual surcharge on Connecticut homeowner insurance policies and deposited into the “Healthy Homes Fund” to pay for needed repairs. The funds are overseen and distributed by the Connecticut Foundation Solutions Indemnity Company Inc.

In response to the latest report on the assistance program, Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor, said that state leaders and the company had helped to alleviate some difficult conditions for thousands of homeowners across the region.

“Seeing these results — and knowing that the hard work of countless people has benefitted and aided community members in dire times — is reassuring,” Anwar said. “There’s still plenty of work left to do, but these results are heartening.”

Sen. MD Rahman, a Manchester Democrat whose district has also been impacted by crumbling foundations, agreed and pledged to continue his support for homeowners in need of assistance.

“Crumbling foundations have been a scourge upon many Connecticut households, but the gradual progress seen in the last several years has been reassuring,” Rahman said.

That process was made possible by state legislators who recognized the untenable position many homeowners found themselves in when their investments began crumbling and private insurance companies refused to pay for repairs, Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, said.

“It was an impossible situation,” Osten said. “Thankfully, on a fairly bipartisan basis, the General Assembly took action to save people’s homes and do what the private sector refused to do. The results have been amazing, and we’ve got another 1,000 homes or so still to repair.”

It’s been nearly a decade since Connecticut’s crumbling foundations crisis was uncovered, with more than 35,000 total homes potentially impacted by failing concrete foundations statewide.

Reports of crumbling foundations first began in 2015. By May 2017, the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection had received reports of more than 550 homes with faulty foundations, and in December 2017 began processing 522 verified reports to determine compensation eligibility.

The compromised concrete originated from the JJ Mottes Concrete Company in Stafford Springs, from 1983 to 2015; in many cases, the foundations contained an iron sulfide substance called pyrrhotite that causes slow degradation of concrete when exposed to oxygen and water. That slow degradation contributed to the impacts of the crisis, as its weakening effects can go unnoticed for up to 30 years.

The current safe and effective method to fix a home that has tested positive for pyrrhotite is to lift the house off the existing foundation and completely replace all the concrete. According to the Connecticut Department of Housing, this process can cost anywhere from $100,000 to $250,000, often more than the total value of many affected homes.

Public Invited to the State Capitol Tuesday to Pay Tribute to Former Governor Rell

By Lawrence Cook

December 2 @ 11:15 am

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Members of the public can pay tribute to former Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who will lay in state at the Capitol in Hartford Tuesday, nearly a week after news of her death was met with statements of mourning from residents and officials across Connecticut.

Rell, who was 78, died in a Florida hospital on Nov. 20 following a brief illness. She will lay in state at the Connecticut State Capitol from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., when the public is invited to pay tribute. That will be followed by a 2:30 p.m. mass of Christian burial at the Cathedral of Saint Joseph, 140 Farmington Avenue in Hartford.

Following news of her death, Rell was remembered as a moderate and bipartisan Republican governor who worked with Democrats to pass various public policy issues and who helped Connecticut recover from the scandal of her predecessor, Republican Gov. John G. Rowland, who resigned from office in July 2004 as he faced an impeachment inquiry and a federal corruption investigation into his personal relationships with people doing business with the state.

In a statement last week, Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff recalled Rell as a “gracious, compassionate, and intelligent leader,” who guided Connecticut and reassured its citizens in the aftermath of Rowland’s corruption scandal.

“We always found her to be thoughtful, bipartisan, hardworking, and dedicated to improving the lives of Connecticut citizens,” Looney and Duff said. “We extend our sympathies to her family and friends and encourage them to take comfort in the shining legacy that she has left the people of Connecticut.”

Sen. Joan Hartley, a veteran Democrat from Waterbury, remembered serving with Rell when both were elected to the state House.

“Governor Rell, only the second woman to serve as governor, leaves behind a legacy of restoring public trust in government, a long list of accomplishments achieved through bipartisanship and pragmatism, and her unwavering dedication to the people of Connecticut,” Hartley said.

Several other Democratic legislators issued statements describing the former governor as a steady hand in a moment of turbulence and uncertainty in Connecticut history.

Sen. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, pointed to many of the policies which Rell supported during her tenure as a public servant, including Connecticut’s successful public campaign financing system, a public health insurance option, and reforms of the Medicaid program.

“Governor Rell was charming, moderate and pragmatic – a Republican who raised taxes on the wealthy,” Lesser said. “She had personal integrity, and also knew how to say no to the loudest and angriest voices in her party in order to represent the needs of Connecticut.”

A private interment ceremony will occur at the Connecticut State Veterans Cemetery in Middletown on a date yet to be determined. Governor Rell will be buried alongside her husband Lou Rell, a veteran of the U.S. Navy, who died in March 2014.

Connecticut Stands Out in National Ranking by Hospital Watchdog Group

By Joe O’Leary

November 29 @ 9:00 am

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The latest national review of more 3,000 hospitals by the watchdog organization The Leapfrog Group saw Connecticut rise from 12th to 3rd place in a state-by-state ranking that weighed hospitals for their overall safety, quality of service and prevention of accidents.

The nonprofit group graded the hospitals from A to F and found that 14 of the state’s 28 hospitals received A grades for patient safety – with four of those hospitals improving to A-grades since Leapfrog’s last rankings in the spring. That helped Connecticut surge forward from 12th place to 3rd place in the recent fall ranking.

Why such a leap? From spring to fall, Leapfrog upgraded its ratings for Danbury Hospital, Norwalk Hospital, Johnson Memorial Hospital and Charlotte Hungerford Hospital from B or C grades to A grades. In that time, only Saint Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury fell from an A grade to a B grade, contributing to a net climb from 11 to 14 A-grade ratings this year.

Other hospitals that received A grades in the fall included: Bridgeport’s St. Vincent Medical Center, Farmington’s UConn Health, Hartford Hospital, Meriden’s MidState Medical Center, Middletown’s Middlesex Hospital, New Britain’s Hospital of Central Connecticut, Norwich’s Backus Hospital, Sharon Hospital, Stamford Hospital, and Willimantic’s Windham Community Memorial Hospital.

Leapfrog assigned Hospital Safety Grades to about 3,000 facilities nationwide, tracking 22 national patient safety measures and additional data sources to achieve its markings. The list is not exhaustive and is lacking critical access hospitals, rural emergency hospitals, long-term care facilities and federal hospitals, in addition to specialty facilities like surgery centers and cancer hospitals.

The grades were informed by standards including ICU staffing, bar code medication use, total nursing care hours, staff communication, hand hygiene and tracking of negative patient outcomes related to safety. These ranged from falls to infections to in-hospital care complications.

Connecticut landed third nationwide in the Leapfrog ratings and was surpassed by only Utah and Virginia, where more than half of all hospitals also achieved A-grades. The Nutmeg State leapfrogged over North Carolina, New Jersey, California and Pennsylvania, among other states, to land in the top 3.

The ratings reflect improving standards in Connecticut and nationally, with The Leapfrog Group reporting declining instances of in-hospital infections, and better use of hand hygiene and medication safety nationwide. In the last two years, the group said, national reports of bloodstream infections, urinary tract infections and MRSA are all down more than 30 percent nationally.

To read the full Leapfrog Group Hospital Safety Grades, click here.

Fall Drought Points to Climate Resiliency Needs

By Joe O’Leary

November 28 @ 9:00 am

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Although recent precipitation has provided some temporary relief of Connecticut’s severe drought conditions, many experts say the drought is the latest evidence that climate resiliency is sorely needed.

The dry conditions are just the latest in a string of extreme weather events in recent years including wildfire smoke blowing in from Canada in 2023 and causing hazy conditions for weeks, extreme flooding from pounding, torrential rains and severe storms this summer, not to mention the summer of 2024’s designation as the hottest in Connecticut history.

Just an inch of rain falling from late August to mid-November contributed to severe drought statewide, drying out vegetation and sparking serious brush fires. One such blaze in Berlin and Meriden took the life of a Wethersfield firefighter in October and has cost millions to fight, CT Insider reported.

Last week, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported that all of Connecticut, save for a southeastern slice of New London County, is in “severe” drought. That classification is not quite as dire as that identification seems – “severe” comes before “extreme” and “exceptional” drought and represents the middle standard for drought conditions – but has advanced rapidly, given that on Oct. 1, 64% of the state was under “abnormally dry” conditions and 36% had no drought signifiers.

CT Insider said that part of the problem is sheer lack of rainfall – while Connecticut usually sees up to nine inches of rain, this autumn dropped just one inch.

Even with more than an inch of rain falling throughout the state on Nov. 21, that isn’t considered enough to break the conditions. As such, Gov. Ned Lamont has announced a drought advisory statewide, with its “stage 2” status considered an awareness stage before further action. That’s on top of a state of emergency, as well as a statewide burn ban.

The state has asked residents to voluntarily reduce water use by shutting down automatic outdoor irrigation, minimizing wasted water from leaky plumbing and adhering to other conservation requests.

Drought isn’t new to Connecticut, having struck as recently as 2022 when two of the state’s counties reached moderate drought conditions and some citizens were subject to water conservation rules. Other years of drought included 2021, 2016 and, especially severely, 2017.

However, drought has become more prevalent and common in recent years; according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, six of the last ten years have seen at least moderate drought reported in Connecticut, compared to ten of the last 25, indicating more frequent extreme weather.

The impacts across the state have been widespread. Agriculture is often damaged by drought, as are other natural conditions; the fire that sparked in Berlin and Meriden has cost millions of dollars, and acres of land across the state have been destroyed – even threatening businesses and homes.

CT Insider went further, speaking to medical professionals who said extreme weather like droughts have caused health impacts. For instance, wildfire smoke has reduced air quality in the state – not as bad as the thick smoke of June 2023, but still enough to impact air quality. Individuals with asthma and other breathing problems can experience issues in such conditions. They can, if conditions stretch on, also impact water quality and even make water difficult to access.

The main drawback for experts: as our climate and weather continue leaning into extremes, the state needs to prepare ahead of time, building on the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s climate adaptation and resilience efforts. Democratic lawmakers have introduced several bills on the topic in recent years and expect to continue fighting in 2025 and beyond.

Utility Regulators Slash Gas Company Revenues Thanks to Priority Bill by Senate Democrats

By Joe O’Leary

November 27 @ 9:00 am

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The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority voted 2-1 last week to reduce the revenues of Connecticut Natural Gas and Southern Connecticut Gas instead of approving a rate increase sought by the utility companies.

The vote will cut some natural gas customers’ bills from December 2024 to November 2025. The regulators’ rejection of the gas companies’ rate proposal stems in part from legislation spearheaded by Senate Democrats in 2023 that strengthened utility regulations.

The PURA decision called for a $24 million reduction in CNG’s revenue, a decrease of about 5.4%, while SCG will see a reduction of $11 million or 2.5%. The cuts represent a monthly savings of up to $8 for CNG customers and about $4 for SCG customers.

In a statement supporting PURA’s decision, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said that a 2023 earnings report from CNG showed the company over-collected customer payments by about $8 million, and half of those funds were distributed to shareholders.

“Let’s remember how we got here—CNG over-collected millions of dollars from ratepayers,” Tong said. “Then they turned around and asked for millions more. Their rate demands were packed with inflated profits and unnecessary expenses. PURA was absolutely right to slash their revenue.”

Tong noted that there were several areas in the companies’ initial rate requests where they sought “unjustified and unwarranted” funds and may have sought to recover expenses, which state law now prohibits them from recouping.

A Nov. 18 report by WFSB cited Senate Bill 7, passed by legislators in 2023 to better regulate the state’s energy grid. The law was a priority bill from Senate Democrats and included new restrictions on the types of expenses that utility companies are permitted to recover from ratepayers.

The law now bars utility companies from recouping costs associated with things like lobbying, advertising, marketing and board of directors or office travel, food and lodging. WFSB found that the SCG and CNG rate requests sought to recover some of those prohibited expenses.

According to the report, PURA rejected more than $600,000 of funds asked for by CNG and SCG and barred by Senate Bill 7. The companies claimed that they considered parts of Senate Bill 7 to be unconstitutional when asked why they included the requests.

PURA and the Office of Consumer Counsel said such costs would only benefit shareholders of the companies’ parent company, Avangrid.

“I think that they wanted to make sure that reasonable and customary charges in the course of doing business, some of them should be allowed, some of them should not be allowed, for things like advertising, marketing and promotion and lobbying and board of directors,” State Senator Norm Needleman told WFSB.

Senate Bill 7 included prohibitions on regulated utilities seeking increased profits through rate decoupling, as well as provisions stopping utilities from charging ratepayers for rate case costs and allowing consumer groups or small businesses to receive compensation to participate in rate cases. All of these steps are expected to make energy utility costs more transparent and benefit consumers in years to come.

More than 380,000 natural gas customers across Connecticut will see these declines in their bills starting next month.

Biden Administration Awards $291 Million for Connecticut Rail Projects

By Garnet McLaughlin

November 26 @ 9:00 am

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The Federal Railroad Administration has awarded Connecticut $291 million from President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that will be used for railroad improvements at five projects across the state.

These investments will be matched by $120 million in state funds through the Department of Transportation, and $11.7 million from Amtrak.

Sen. Christine Cohen, a Guilford Democrat who co-chairs the legislature’s Transportation Committee, said she was encouraged to see the federal government dedicate substantial funding for rail projects.

“Investing in public transportation has been one of my top priorities in the legislature and these projects will support reliability and ultimately increase ridership,” Cohen said. “Robust public transportation infrastructure creates connectivity, decreases our reliance on fossil fuels and offers riders safe and reliable means of transportation.”

The projects that have received federal funding include:

-$172 million for Track Improvement and Mobility Enhancement: The project is for construction activities supporting the installation of 88 catenary structures, addition of four new crossovers, and replacement of the Longbrook Avenue Roadway bridge along a three-mile segment of New Haven Line Main Line, which passes through Bridgeport, Stratford, and Milford.

-$102 million for Hartford Line Rail Program Double Track Project: The project is for the construction of track improvements along 6.7 miles of existing track in West Hartford, Hartford, Windsor, and Windsor Locks. The improvements will establish a double track along this corridor to provide more frequent passenger service to Hartford and Springfield. Other improvements include track upgrades and installation, signal upgrades, and gate and road crossing upgrades.

-$8 million for the Connecticut River Bridge Replacement Project: This funding will be used for a planning-level study for the replacement of the 117-year-old Connecticut River Bridge on the Amtrak-owned New Haven-Hartford-Springfield corridor in Windsor Locks.

-$6.4 million for Cos Cob Bridge Replacement Study: The project is for planning activities to determine the best course of action in replacing the 120-year-old, movable Cos Cob Bridge over the Mianus River in Greenwich.

-$2.56 million for Hartford Station Relocation Project: The project is for planning construction of a new Hartford train station and multimodal hub with associated realignment and double-tracking of 2.1 miles of the Hartford Line in Hartford.

These projects were among a total of $1.5 billion awarded for projects along the Northeast Corridor, according to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“The Biden-Harris Administration continues to make good on its promise to deliver the long-awaited, much-needed investments to modernize this critical route,” Buttigieg said. “With the nearly $1.5 billion in funding we’re announcing today, we’re upgrading our rail infrastructure to support our economy and make service safer, faster, and more reliable for hundreds of thousands of passengers who depend on this route.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Grant Program funds capital projects that reduce the state of good repair backlog, improve performance, or expand or establish new intercity passenger rail service, including privately operated intercity passenger rail service.

Connecticut’s Unemployment Drops to Lowest Rate in 23 Years

By Hugh McQuaid

November 25 @ 9:30 am

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Connecticut’s unemployment rate dropped to 3% in October, according to a new report by the state Labor Department, which found unemployment at its lowest level in more than two decades.

The labor figures, released last week, reported a 0.2% decline in unemployment, marking the seventh consecutive month in which the jobless rate has decreased. According to the agency, Connecticut’s unemployment rate has not dropped to 3% since August 2001, just over 23 years ago.

In a press release, CTDOL Director of Research Patrick Flaherty said the October statistics reflected a labor market with strong opportunities for job seekers.

“With a very low unemployment rate, low unemployment claims filing, and a steady labor force participation rate, this remains a tight job market for employers who are recruiting; they are constrained by the smaller workforce post-pandemic,” Flaherty said.

The decline in unemployment accompanied a 900-job increase in private sector employment along with decreases in the government sector. The state experienced the largest gains in sectors like transportation & warehousing and accommodation & food services.

Labor Commissioner Danté Bartolomeo said that the figures corresponded with a post-pandemic trend in which job growth has surged during the first half of each year, before cooling off in the later months.

All told, Connecticut has added a total of around 13,200 during 2024, with a monthly average of about 1,320, according to the department.

“Even with monthly ups and downs, our economy is stable with major economic drivers like healthcare continuing to hire and expand,” Bartolomeo said. “It’s worth noting that from October 2023 to October 2024 a total of 8,300 jobs were added to employer payrolls — 7,700 of those were in healthcare. While we are watchful of the impact of national issues, the state’s economy remains steady.”