Delaware

Top Highlights

Education Investments
Workforce shortages
Housing
Fiscal Responsibility

Governor John Carney, entering his sixth year as governor of the First State, spoke to a packed Senate Chamber on Thursday, laying out his priorities for the year ahead.E

Early in his address, Carney insisted that Delaware’s “success as a state must start with building a strong and growing economy,” citing examples in every corner of the state where new businesses and economic investments were paying dividends for the state’s economy. But, he warned, today’s economy looks very different from the past.

Employers have 37,000 job openings in the State of Delaware. And there are just 21,000 Delawareans looking for a job. I’ve never seen a situation like this before.

“The biggest challenge we have is filling the job openings that are out there,” he said.

“For my entire career in public service, we’ve been focused first on creating jobs. There have always been more people looking for work than jobs available. Today, it’s just the opposite. We have thousands more job openings than we have people looking for work.”

Carney explained that the trend extended to state government, where there are 2,000 job openings currently seeking applicants.

He underscored the importance of the state’s universities, not only in worker training but in competitive employment.

ARPA funding, as in many states, is also driving new opportunities. Carney specifically identified a program using ARPA funding to rehabilitate blighted homes on the east side of Wilmington, the state’s largest city.

But no part of Carney’s speech included more concrete details on new spending than the section on Education.

Right now, the competition for the best teachers in this region is more intense than ever.

Carney, whose parents were both educators, touted major raises for Delaware teachers amid rising competition for educators in the region and outlined a plan to increase investments in Early Childhood Education. Stressing that a strong economy starts with a good education, he promised raises up to 9 percent for Delaware teachers. The Opportunity Funding program – which provides additional funding for low-income children and English learners in Delaware schools – is also slated to receive an additional $50 million. Opportunity Funding grew out of an ACLU lawsuit that previously claimed the state was not upholding its constitutional obligations to all students. Additional details on implementation are available, thanks to a state partnership with RAND.

Carney also pledged to increase funding for early childhood education in Delaware. he singled out the state’s purchase of care program and the Early Childhood Assistance Program (ECAP), the latter of which he said would receive double its current appropriation in his budget.

All of this funding was meant, in one way or another, to achieve Delaware’s education goals, explained by Carney as the expectation that children should be able to:
• Read at grade level by third grade.
• Be proficient in math by middle school.
• Graduate high school ready for college or a career.

We’re the lowest–lying state in the nation. And the effects of climate change and sea level rise on Delaware communities are real.

On the climate, Carney moved on to highlights of his administration’s plans to increase funding for Delaware’s Clean Water Trust, plant a tree for every Delawarean, and build out Delaware’s electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

Carney paused briefly to celebrate progress made on the public safety front, touting a nearly 30 percent reduction in shootings statewide over the previous year. He also pointed to continued work with leaders in Wilmington and Dover to expand Delaware’s Group Violence Intervention Program.

When I took office six years ago, we were facing an almost $400 million deficit. Now, we have $400 million more in reserves for when the economy turns down again which we know will happen at some point.

Finally, Carney promised to prioritize fiscal responsibility, which has been a hallmark of his time as chief executive of Delaware, explaining that “we can’t make any of these investments – in education, in our economy, in environmental protection and public safety – if we don’t have our fiscal house in order.”

You can read the full text from Delaware State of the State address here.

Connecticut

Highlights:

Fiscal stability
Job growth via investments in workforce, small businesses
Housing
Promised tax cut for middle class families

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, newly elected to a second term, gave his state of the state immediately after being inaugurated in Hartford on January 4.

His address was the second earliest of the year, tied with Andy Besear in Kentucky and behind only Doug Burgum in North Dakota, who gave his address on January 3, 2023.

Lamont hailed progress made during his first term in the governor’s mansion – especially on stabilizing the state’s budget – before diving into his vision for continued economic growth.

My fiscal priorities are economic growth, because growth is the precondition to opportunity.

Instead of the shuttered businesses and direct payments that defined the Covid-19 crisis, Connecticut is now facing the tight labor market that so many other states in the region are struggling with. Lamont specifically cited “100,000 jobs going begging” in Connecticut, owing mainly to a reduced workforce, slow population growth, and a skills gap between available workers and open jobs.

To meet those challenges, he highlighted Connecticut laws to:

Offer paid family medical leave, expanded childcare, and paid sick days.
Tie minimum wage increases to inflation
Provide skills training opportunities to workers in the state through their CareerConnCT program.
Fund small businesses and entrepreneurs through a small business boost fund, especially those led by women and people of color.

Still, larger problems loom on the horizon, according to the governor:

But the biggest slam to our affordability and economic growth is housing, or the lack thereof. Every business thinking about moving or expanding repeats over and over, “Even if you had the workforce, there is no place for them to live.” The answer cannot simply be more subsidies.

Housing – an issue growing increasingly urgent around the region – is complex for state governments to tackle, requiring close cooperation between multiple levels of government. Lamont admitted as much, saying that “The answer cannot simply be more subsidies” and imploring local government to communicate with state leaders.

“Connecticut towns and cities, you tell us where developers can build more housing so more housing can be built faster, at less cost, and local control will determine how and where it is built.”

After many years of unfilled promises, now is the time to enact a meaningful middle-class tax cut. That’s a reduction in tax rates, which the state can afford and makes your life more affordable.

Finally, Lamont argued for a small but “meaningful” tax cut, something he should now be more palatable with a balanced state budget.

“Thanks to our collective efforts, the era of Connecticut’s permanent fiscal crisis is over. It’s over as long as we maintain the same fiscal discipline that served us so well over the last four years,” he added.

The governor has been hinting at this tax cut proposal, according to CT Insider reporting from last December. The governor wanted a modest cut for joint filers earning up to $150,000 in yearly income, who currently pay a 5 percent rate.

“It’s a little premature, but the 5 percent rate, if I can get that down to 4.75 or 4.5 in negotiations with our friends in the legislature, I think it would be a good start,” he was quoted as saying at the time.

The post State of the State Analysis: Delaware and Connecticut appeared first on CSG ERC.

The Council of State Governments Center of Innovation recently responded to a research request on rural apprenticeship programs in Maine. The findings of this request are available below.

Registered Apprenticeship is an industry-driven, high-quality career pathway proven to benefit both workers and employers. Registered Apprenticeship programs consist of supervised, on-the-job training related technical instruction to supplement experiential learning and the acquisition of an industry-recognized credential. Apprenticeship programs can increase worker retention rates for employers and overall lifetime earnings for apprentices. However, these programs are often inaccessible to learners in rural communities.

Long distances between home and work, a lack of transportation options and inadequate internet access to connect to related instruction are just a few factors that can limit the expansion of Registered Apprenticeship programs in rural communities. Additionally, smaller employers operating in rural communities may lack the capacity to manage the administrative responsibilities of apprenticeship programs. As a result, rural learners often miss out on the benefits of apprenticeship like mentorship and a progressive wage scale. In return, employers lose the opportunity to train and retain their own workforce.

Rural learners often miss out on the benefits of apprenticeship

Maine has made strides in promoting apprenticeship as a workforce development tool in rural communities. Based on the U.S. Census Bureau definitions of urban and rural areas, Registered Apprenticeship programs exist in 10 of 11 of Maine’s rural counties. Across these 10 counties, there are 33 sponsors of 64 Registered Apprenticeship programs. The rural county with the most apprenticeships is Sagadahoc, with seven sponsors of 27 apprenticeship programs. The rural county with the second-highest number of apprenticeships is Somerset with 12.

The post Expanding Rural Apprenticeship in Maine appeared first on CSG ERC.

Governor Kathy Hochul – now elected to serve her first full term as chief executive of New York – delivered her 2023 State of the State Address on Tuesday, a little over a week after her inaugural address. In her speech to the audience of legislators, state leaders, and press gathered in the Assembly Chamber, Hochul outlined her plans for the next four years, putting special emphasis on public safety.

My number one priority has always been, and will always be, to keep New Yorkers safe.

Hochul highlighted New York’s efforts on gun violence prevention, including its red flag law, raising the minimum age to 21 to purchase semi-automatic weapons, and launching a “first-in-the-nation, nine-state task force on illegal guns,” which she said took more than 10,000 illegal guns off New York streets in 2022.

She also addressed bail reform, which she called the most controversial aspect of the public safety discussion.

While standing by the goal that “the size of someone’s bank account should not determine [bail decisions]” and claiming that bail reform is not the primary driver of a national crime wave, she also said that “the bail reform law as written now leaves room for improvement” – a line that received much less applause from fellow Democrats in the chamber.

Hochul also touched on the State’s Gun Involved Violence Elimination initiative, cooperation with New York City to boost office presence on subways, and an expansion of the State Police Community Stabilization Units to 25 communities around the Empire State.

But, there are other important ways to address crime too, she said, pointing to record investments in education, housing and mental health.

…since the onset of the pandemic, more than one in three New Yorkers have sought mental health care, or know someone who has. I’m declaring that the era of ignoring the needs of these individuals is over.

Hochul also made mental health a major focus of her annual address, outlining a multi-year, $ 1 billion plan to fill gaps in mental healthcare.

The multi-year plan includes:

increasing operational capacity by 1,000 beds for inpatient psychiatric treatment
creating 3,500 units of housing to serve New Yorkers with mental illness
increasing insurance coverage/reimbursement rates for mental health services
dramatically expanding outpatient services
creating systemic accountability for hospital admissions and discharges to better address the needs of individuals suffering with mental illness.

According to Hochul, “nearly 3,200 New Yorkers struggling with severe mental illness or addiction are living on the street and subways.”

She also pledged to address the ongoing opioid epidemic by working with federal and local partners to stop the flow of illicit drugs and address new deadly additives like xylazine, expanding the availability of test strips and Naloxone, and creating a new interagency task force to examine “every possible solution.”

…you can’t really talk about quality of life without talking about cost of living.

Highlighting affordability issues in New York – one of the most expensive metro areas in the nation – Governor Hochul explained the importance of Housing availability and affordability to the state’s future.

Hochul’s administration outlined New York’s housing crisis with stark data, in a recent press release:

More than half of New York renters are rent-burdened, meaning that they pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent – the second-highest rate in the nation.
In the New York City metro area, rents have risen 30 percent since 2015 and home prices have risen 50 percent over the same period.

In her speech, Hochul said that New York had, in the previous 10 years, “created 1.2 million jobs – but only 400,000 new homes.”

“When it comes to New York City, other metro areas are creating new housing at two to four times the rate that we are,” she said. “Boston’s rate is almost double. Washington D.C., triple. Seattle, four times.”

To address the crisis, she outlined a plan to “build 800,000 new homes over the next decade to meet the historic shortage, and support New York renters and homeowners.”

Hochul’s plan leans heavily on a new New York Housing Compact, a comprehensive, multi-pronged strategy that includes local participation requirements and incentives to achieve housing growth in every community.

Hochul’s plan specifically targets transit corridors for increased density by requiring municipalities with MTA rail stations to locally rezone for higher density residential development.

…any municipality with a train station will rezone the area within a half-mile of the station, to allow for the creation of new housing… within the next three years.

Hochul’s agenda also includes plans to reduce emissions, tying sustainability back into the theme of affordability.

In addition to what she called a “nation-leading Cap-and-Invest program,” Hochul charted an ambitious plan to decarbonize and better insulate buildings in New York, echoing previous plans rolled out in New York City and Ithaca.

Building decarbonization – which CSG East has covered before – involves switching from natural gas or fuel oil to electric heat pumps for space and water heating, and installing induction stoves. It also entails weatherizing and retrofitting the aging housing stock, of which three-quarters was constructed before 1940.

The EmPower Plus program announced in the address will help low-income families retrofit their homes, Hochul said, by adding insulation, upgrading appliances, and switching from fossil fuels to clean electric heating systems. Homes that electrify will be eligible for a first-in-the-nation Energy Affordability Guarantee, a promise that they will never spend more than 6 percent of their income on electricity.

Hochul also proposed a plan to end the sale of any new fossil-fuel-powered heating equipment by 2030.

buildings are the largest source of emissions in our state, accounting for a third of our greenhouse gas output, as well as pollution that aggravates asthma and endangers our children.

You can read the full text from the New York State of the State address here.

More info on the Hochul administration’s plans for 2023, as outlined in the speech, have been published in a 276-page digital book, with key sections broken down in related press releases.

The post New York State of the State Analysis appeared first on CSG ERC.