New Grants Fund Broadband Improvements in More than Half of Connecticut Towns

By Hugh McQuaid

October 17 @ 5:00 am

Broadband projects in towns and cities across Connecticut will receive a boost through the release of $28 million in grants meant to support the expansion of broadband infrastructure, Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration announced last week.

The grants will offset the costs of projects to bolster access to high-speed Internet at more than 3,000 locations across the state.

Funding for the grants come from the federal American Rescue Plan Act and has been released under the ConneCTed Communities Grant Program. The initial round of grants will benefit 88 towns and cities, which accounts for more than half of the state’s 169 municipalities.

In a press release, Lamont said the funding represented a critical step in Connecticut’s push to make broadband more widely available.

“The expansion of broadband infrastructure will make Connecticut’s towns and cities stronger, more resilient, and better positioned to engage in today’s increasingly digitized world,” Lamont said.

The largest single grant in the program’s first round went to Comcast, which received more than $21 million to support upgrade projects at nearly 2,100 locations spread across more than 75 Connecticut municipalities.

The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection began accepting applications for the second round of funding earlier this month. The agency is expected to release another $12.8 million in grants to support infrastructure enhancements, including support for projects at multi-dwelling homes in distressed municipalities.

The state legislature approved the funds to build out Connecticut’s broadband infrastructure through a bill in 2021. The legislation passed unanimously through the state Senate.

When the proposal was raised for a public hearing, John Erlingheuser, advocacy director for the state AARP, testified in support of the bill, saying the grants would help Connecticut ensure that its older residents had access to affordable and reliable Internet.

“Among other things, high-speed internet access allows older residents to overcome social isolation through virtual visitation with friends and family, and staying connected to houses of worship, senior centers, libraries and more,” he said.

Legislation Leads to Regulatory Proposal Reducing Natural Gas Costs

By Joe O’Leary

October 15 @ 5:00 am

The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) issued a draft decision this month proposing to decrease the revenue of Connecticut Natural Gas and Southern Connecticut Gas after the utility companies submitted information for a proposed rate increase.

While the companies were seeking increases to their revenue requirements of $19.7 million and $43.24 million, PURA’s decision would instead decrease their revenue by $38.76 million and $36.6 million.

This decision, which was hailed by legislators and decried by the president and CEO of the utility companies, was strengthened by legislation passed in 2020 to hold state utilities more accountable and allow for increased regulatory power.

The state legislature passed the Take Back Our Grid Act of 2020 after Tropical Storm Isaias caused severe damage and extended power outages across Connecticut. The law gave PURA more power to evaluate company performance during rate amendment proposals. Meanwhile, Senate Bill 7 of 2023, An Act Strengthening Protections for Energy Consumers, required PURA to consider several factors when determining a reasonable rate of return.

In this case, the Office of Consumer Counsel and the attorney general called on PURA to conduct a full financial review of CNG due to well-documented over-earnings. Upon PURA’s notice, both Avangrid subsidiaries filed a rate increase application. PURA was able to review the rationale of the companies’ earnings thanks to the flexibility provided in the legislation.

In its decision, PURA concluded that SCG should return $85 million, which regulators deemed were overcharges to customers, including $67 million due to federal tax changes and surplus revenues from gas sales, while CNG was required to return $24 million in surplus collections including those from gas sales and hardship deferrals.

If finalized, these reductions will lower consumers’ bills by an average $12-13 per month across all customer classes.

The Take Back Our Grid Act also provided PURA the ability to evaluate a company’s performance during rate request proposals; in its draft decision in the CNG and SCG case, PURA cited several issues with SCG’s performance, including its dedication to customer service.

Take Back Our Grid and 2023’s Senate Bill 7 were both designed to enhance the regulatory ability of organizations like PURA, including disallowing costs related to investor relations, membership dues and sponsorships, lobbying expenses, and rate case preparation and participation costs incurred by utility companies.

In those two cases, over a million dollars related to these line items were not permitted to be recovered through CNG and SCG customer bills as a result of these legislative changes.

In a statement last week, leaders of the legislature’s Energy and Technology Committee, including state Sens. Norm Needleman and Doug McCrory, said the preliminary decision validated the pro-consumer policies enacted by their panel.

“While this decision is not final, we believe that any help for ratepayers of gas and electric companies as a result of rate cases justifies our legislative decisions to require those rate cases more frequently than they were held in the past,” the committee leadership said. “This decision, if it stands, will save consumers money. We are validated that this ruling, pending final action, is indicative of the work we’ve done – Take Back Our Grid in 2020 and Senate Bill 7 in 2023 – to make sure utilities are being held accountable through the legislative process.”

Florida’s Housing Market Stalls as Connecticut Surges

By Hugh McQuaid

October 15 @ 5:00 am

As demand for homes in Connecticut continues to outpace supply, the Wall Street Journal published a new report this week detailing a sputtering housing market in Florida, where homes are increasingly hard to sell due to declining interest from buyers.

Connecticut’s popularity among prospective homebuyers has helped to fuel a housing shortage that has contributed to a surging home market.

Real estate brokerage Redfin estimates that the number of homes sold in the state increased 1.1% over the last year as median home prices grew by 8%. Meanwhile, the site reported that Connecticut homes spent a median of about 33 days on the market before they were snatched up by buyers.

Compare those numbers to Florida, where Redfin estimated that a median home spent more than two months on the market — an increase of about 18 days in just the last year — while median home prices declined.

Why are homes in Florida increasingly hard to sell?

According to the Wall Street Journal, high mortgage rates and spiking insurance costs have made Florida’s once-booming housing market unaffordable and undesirable for many families.

The WSJ interviewed Anthony Holmes, a former Virginia resident who moved to Tampa in 2021. Holmes told the newspaper he was now looking to leave Florida, but had been unable to sell his house, despite making tens of thousands of dollars in home improvements and cutting his asking price multiple times.

“I can’t unload the thing,” Holmes told the Wall Street Journal. “In eight months, I’ve had zero offers. No one even showed up to the open houses. Nobody.”

As climate change has contributed to more frequent and severe weather events, Florida has experienced an increasing number of destructive storms.

Damage wrought by these storms has made homes in Florida difficult to insure. In some areas of Florida, insurance premiums have increased as much as 400% in just the last five years, the Wall Street Journal reported.

While Florida struggles with waning interest from homebuyers, Connecticut Democrats have committed to encouraging more housing development in order to meet the needs of the growing number of families wishing to reside in the state.

Last month, Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff and House Majority Leader Jason Rojas explained the need to promote more development in order to support Connecticut’s economic growth.

“Our nation is in the midst of a housing crisis, and the only real solution is to build more homes and welcome more neighbors into our communities,” the majority leaders wrote. “Here in Connecticut, we have a responsibility to be part of that solution.”

Childhood Vaccine Coverage Increases in Connecticut Despite National Decline

By Hugh McQuaid

October 14 @ 5:00 am

Connecticut stood out as an exception in new statistics from the Centers for Disease Control, which found vaccination rates declining around the country as an increasing number of parents decline to inoculate their children against preventable illnesses.

The CDC numbers, released last week, found that vaccination coverage among American kindergartners had declined for all reported vaccines during the 2023-2024 school year when compared to the 2022-2023 school year.

For instance, MMR coverage among kindergarteners dropped from 93.1% in 22-23 to 92.7% in 23-24. Both numbers are well below the 95% coverage threshold, which makes outbreaks of disease unlikely.

In a statement to USA Today, Dr. Georgina Peacock, director of the CDC’s Immunization Services Division, said the declining vaccination rates posed serious and potentially fatal risks to children and those around them.

“As we are noting these declines in childhood vaccination, we are also seeing more communities experience outbreaks of measles and whooping cough across the U.S.,” she said. “Vaccination is the best way to prevent these outbreaks and their devastating impact on children.”

The decline represents a continuation of a trend that has seen vaccination coverage rates sliding in the years since the pandemic. National MMR coverage sat at 95.2% during the 2019-202 academic year.

The decrease is largely driven by an ongoing spike in the number of parents claiming non-medical exemptions to laws requiring school children to be inoculated against several preventable illnesses before attending kindergarten.

Roughly 1.9% of kindergarteners received non-medical exemptions during the 2020-2021 school year and that number has risen each subsequent year, according to the CDC. The most recent statistics found that around 3.1% of students received a non-medical exemption, nationwide.

Connecticut’s statistics paint a different story. The state’s MMR vaccination coverage increased 97.3% to 97.7% from 2022-23 to 2023-24, according to the CDC. Meanwhile, non-medical exemptions dropped from 0.5% in 2022-23 to 0.1% in 2023-24.

This rise in protection for school children coincides with the implementation of a policy decision made in 2021, when the legislature voted to phase out the use of non-medical exemptions to school vaccine requirements in an effort to preserve immunity coverage.

Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor, said the CDC statistics demonstrated the efficacy of responsible public health policies.

“While it’s disappointing to see non-medical exemptions continue to diminish childhood immunity around the country, I’m heartened to see Connecticut children benefiting from the protection that vaccine coverage provides,” said Anwar, a physician who co-chairs the legislature’s Public Health Committee. “Students across the state are now less likely to suffer from preventable and unnecessary illnesses thanks to this common-sense policy.”

Exploring the CT Grown Trail for Autumn Agricultural Tourism

By Joe O’Leary

October 12 @ 5:00 am

As temperatures fall, leaves turn colors and autumn fully arrives in Connecticut, CT Grown, a division of the state Department of Agriculture, is working to support state farms and wineries.

The organization, which supports and promotes agriculture and aquaculture, recently created the CT Grown Trail, meant to highlight some of Connecticut’s many farms, orchards, vineyards, wineries and more.

The CT Grown Trail, available at www.ctgrown.org, offers three separate trails for visitors to utilize depending on their location, with different paths focused on the western, central and eastern parts of the state.

Specifically designed to support day trips that can take people around the state and home – or back to their home state or hotel – in one day, the trail is designed to encourage exploration to find businesses with unique and well-known offerings.

On the Central trail, for instance, someone could start with breakfast at restaurants recommended Granby, New Haven or Middletown, before heading to Glastonbury for pick-your-own produce and lunch, or farm visits in Orange, Bethany or Durham before taking a trip to wineries in Simsbury, Wallingford or Clinton. Such a trip, depending on someone’s location, could end with dinner in Simsbury, Branford or Chester.

Similar trails for the East recommend restaurants in Mansfield or Mystic, farms in Canterbury and Preston, a Stonington oyster farm and dinner in Putnam, while the western trail can start with breakfast in Goshen or Westport, lunch in Bantam or Ridgefield, and dinner in New Preston, Stratford or Norwalk.

With autumn in full swing, CT Grown’s trails are perfect for fall tourism, with orchards represented – not only for apple picking, but apple cider and apple cider donuts – and pumpkin patches and farm stands receiving new attention.

The trails also draw attention to Connecticut’s farm wineries, which offer special fall events and pairings, and the farmyards that host corn mazes, which are perfect for fall family fun.

These trails are just one way to plan a trip around the state; CT Grown’s website also features sections dedicated to agritourism, with specific focuses on fruit, vegetables and animal products, a feature of Connecticut Wine Country’s best offerings, and a list of events being held around the state.