Dr. Myra Jones-Taylor, the Executive Director of Connecticut's Office of Early Childhood, appeared on WNPRs Where We Live to discuss plans for universal pre-K. Just over 1,000 seats would be added next school year for children from low-income families. Jones-Taylor said a quality pre-K program sets children up for future success. The first phase of the program would cost $13.8 million, which has been built into Malloy’s budget proposal.
Metro-North Officials Meet With Governor
After meeting with Transit Officials, Governor Malloy said Connecticut and the MTA agreed to establish an independent review before work is done on Metro-North's power or electrical lines, in order to avoid outages like what happened last September. Metro-North has been plagued with recent problems. During a recent visit on WNPR’s Where We Live, Malloy called the railroad's recent performance "abysmal."
State Seeks Sandy Relief Funding Input
The state is seeking public comment on its latest plan for recovery from Superstorm Sandy. Last July, the U.S. Department of Housing gave a grant of $72 million to the state. Now Connecticut could receive a further $66 million, but it must first submit an action plan for how it will spend the cash and make the plan available for public comment. The plan includes using the cash to address any remaining unmet housing needs and for resiliency planning for affected homeowners. It also proposes spending about half the money on infrastructure projects. Residents are invited to visit the state’s official CT Recovers website to review and submit comments on the plan. A period for public comment will end on March 20.