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UNITED WAY OF CONNECTICUT | | Have you been trying to make sense of the 2025 legislative session and how the results might affect you? This month’s newsletter shares the highlights, so you are ready for an enlightened summer journey. |
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What did the 2025 legislative session mean for ALICE households – families working hard at the jobs available to them but still struggling to make ends meet? There were victories:
- The General Assembly approved the largest expansion of access to affordable, quality child care in Connecticut history. This newly created early childhood education endowment is transformative for CT and is also innovative in the nation.
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Funding for the CT Nutritional Assistance Program (CT-NAP) that will provide millions of additional meals to food pantries across the state.
- An additional $250 to households with children who qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit, providing these families with a critical boost to their tax refund next year.
And there were disappointments:
- Despite receiving bipartisan support from more than 100 legislators and passing out of the Finance Committee, the CT Child Tax Credit was not included in the budget, leaving low- and middle-income families still scrambling to afford the growing cost of living.
- Funding was eliminated to provide no cost school meals to students who have greatly benefited from this nutritional assistance every day for several years.
- A just cause housing eviction bill did not pass, which means that landlords can still evict families from their homes on short notice without needing to state a reason, exacerbating an already unstable housing market statewide.
- On Monday, Governor Lamont vetoed Omnibus Bill (HB #5002) – the most significant bill proposed to improve the availability and affordability of housing.
So, what does all this plus additional Federal turbulence mean for Connecticut families? Watch the video link above to learn more.
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JESSICA CHUBBUCK
Program Specialist, Kuhn Employment Opportunities
ALICE Advocate
| | Jessica, a single mom, has lived in Wallingford her whole life and, like Macauley, also went through the Wallingford public school system. Macauley just turned 11 in May and will be starting Moran Middle School. For fun they love to bake together, go to the beach and the movies or just hang out at home with their black cat, Iggy! Macauley has a nice group of friends who he plays sports with; he is also big into video games. | | Here Jessica weighs in about how she feels about some of the results of this past legislative session: | | |
School has just ended and Macauley is very excited for summer break! He will be attending two weeks of summer camp in July at Cuno Camp in Meriden. He will also hopefully be registering for lacrosse camp, but we haven’t decided yet. It’s a big financial decision.
Personally, I would have used the proposed CT Child Tax Credit money for camp. The camp my son is registered for is $190 per week. This could have helped us out a great deal and perhaps he could have attended for an additional week. Without day camp in the summer, I would have to ask my mom or friends to care for Macauley, as I work full time during the day. People have their own plans in the summer, so it’s not always practical to rely on other people, especially when you can’t afford to pay them.
Unfortunately, this past year we did not qualify for reduced price school meals – my salary is now too high. Macauley’s school used an app to add money for lunch/snacks. I did add money to his account from time to time, but for the most part we packed lunch and snacks from home. I know many families who are affected by the cost of school lunches, and it is very unfortunate that more people weren’t able to qualify and will be deeply affected by the elimination of free school meals. Thankfully, the PTO at my son’s school is able to assist families with the cost of field trips throughout the year to relieve some of that financial burden for families.
I am thankful for the expanded EITC that will be provided to me during tax time. The additional $250 will go towards my credit card payment this year, which is most likely what I will continue to use it towards in the future.
The early childhood education investment will be amazing for families with young children. It’s definitely something that I would have appreciated as a single mother trying to make ends meet. I'm forever grateful that Macauley was chosen via a lottery system for all day pre-K 3 and 4, which was free through the public-school system in Wallingford. Everyone deserves affordable child care.
On the professional side, I know there was an increase in funding for community nonprofits, but we clearly need more. I work for Kuhn Employment Opportunities in Meriden, which is a day and work program for people with disabilities. We are severely underfunded, and staff have not seen meaningful cost of living increases in a very long time.
My son also plays lacrosse for the Wallingford Tritons, which is a nonprofit league. The cost of coaches, referees, field space, etc. all adds up, which increases the registration costs for parents. Fortunately, I have qualified for scholarships through Wallingford Youth & Social Services in the past that helped alleviate some of the cost of sports sign-ups and equipment for Macauley. However, that is not always guaranteed, as a growing number of families are applying for these types of scholarships
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ALICE Basics Orientation
July 15th at 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm ET
Whether you're a new United Way staff member, board trustee or volunteer, this session designed to introduce you to the ALICE Movement is for you!
Led by the United for ALICE Team, the training will demonstrate how the ALICE data can support your efforts.
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KEITH M. PHANEUF
Budget Reporter
CT Mirror
| | Keith Phaneuf, a first-place 2025 New England Newspaper and Press Association (NENPA) award winner, began his reporting career four decades ago, but his first session covering the Connecticut General Assembly was in 1993. It’s been about 30 years since he’s been tracking Connecticut’s budget. Let’s hear directly from Keith about what it’s like to be the voice of Connecticut’s state budget and economic policy: | | |
I stumbled into journalism in the mid-1980s in my college years while looking for summer work. My local radio station in Putnam wanted someone to cover area municipal boards (education, finance, etc.) and it seemed more appealing than working in an industrial mill – which I also did to cover those tuition bills.
I love the puzzle-like structure of journalism, how one question answered leads to another, particularly when it comes to finances. Take away enough money and everything comes to a grinding halt.
I’m fortunate enough to work most of the time from home, so I start my day by setting up a folding desk, pulling up my office chair and booting up a laptop.
I save lots of time not having to commute through the Hartford area, rush-hour traffic. But I also tend to work longer hours, and my wife needs to remind me to put my tools down at the end of the day.
People correctly guess much of what I do each day: conduct interviews, write articles. The part that often gets overlooked is the considerable time spent on research.
I have a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Connecticut, but no formal education in public finance. Still, I’ve spent decades learning about spending caps, bonding, budget-balancing mechanisms, tax systems and revenue trends.
That means taking the time to read countless reports. Not just the summary, but every single, sometimes painful, page. When academic researchers in California publish a report on the likelihood of wealthy families moving to avoid state taxation – hint, it’s not as prevalent as many believe – it means using the footnotes to identify and read all their sources to understand how conclusions were reached.
A reporter should be like a good watchmaker. If he doesn’t know what every single part of the machine does, no matter how trivial its function may seem, he’s not ready to assemble anything.
And trying your best to understand everything you write about takes time.
| | Many argue that journalism’s relevance is slipping as Americans consume less news than ever before. I believe the opposite is true. Reminding people about key issues, especially those they’ve stopped following, is vital. When the press stops watching, bad things happen. | | |
The public also has little understanding of the media’s role. (Too many folks form that impression based on how movies, TV, portray reporters.) Fewer people today grew up in homes that read newspapers or watched the evening news. Commentary and talk shows have their place, but they offer opinion, not objective reporting.
Too often, political leaders describe spending, taxes and other controversial budgetary issues in far less than full context.
| | More than anything else, I want readers to understand issues, how they affect their lives, in full context. | | |
Here are two examples I dealt with in my career. The missing context is in parenthesis:
- One year after approving one of the largest tax hikes in state history, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration projected in 2012 that Connecticut’s budget was not only in balance, but on pace for a healthy surplus. (But only if one assumed the legislature would order an unprecedented, $1.8 billion in spending cuts over two years. Otherwise, the state would be hundreds of millions of dollars in deficit.)
- Gov. M. Jodi Rell crisscrossed Connecticut in 2009, touting her state budget proposal would raise no taxes, even as the country remained mired in The Great Recession. (But only if one ignored nonpartisan analyses that showed it was a whopping $2.7 billion out of balance due to extremely rosy revenue projections.)
When I’m not working, I live in the Greater Hartford area with my wife, CT Mirror investigative reporter Jenna Carlesso. My allergies leave us pet-free, though we encounter the occasional bear while enjoying our town’s many beautiful walking trails.
We love living in Connecticut, visiting the shoreline. (Southeastern Connecticut has the best seafood.)
When life really slows down, I can be found obsessing over my fantasy baseball team, watching Parks and Recreation or re-reading Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.
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You can dig more in-depth into the legislative session by reading the headline news (many articles by our friend Keith Phaneuf):
| | Whether you have prior experience or not, we are always looking for folks to join us and our coalitions to advocate for one or more of these issues: | | | | |
