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INCREASING TRANSPORTATION FUNDING IN CONNECTICUTGovernor Malloy Press Conference to Announce Plan for Increasing Transportation Funding
When: 10amWednesday, January 31, 2017
Where: Old Judiciary Room at the State Capitol Please arrive early to park in the Legislative Office Building Parking Lot, go through security, and walk through the tunnel to the State Capitol.
Capitol News Briefing Concerning Legislative Proposals on Electronic Tolling
VIDEO OF TOLL PRESS CONFERENCE
Dozen House Democrats vow new drive for tolls despite rocky road
A dozen House Democratic legislators pledged Monday to propose a bill in the upcoming legislative session to establish electronic tolling throughout highways in Connecticut – a pitch that has been made numerous times in recent years but has failed to win approval.
The measure would empower the Department of Transportation to establish tolls, which eventually would become the chief source of revenue for the Special Transportation Fund. The fund’s chief sources of revenue now are fuel taxes.
Proponents of tolls say the investment is necessary to bail out the fund that supports transportation construction projects, and dismissed criticism that the money would just be raided to help cover the state’s operating budget, as has been done in the past.
“I promise you if we do this, this state will thrive,” said state Rep. Tony Guerrera, D-Rocky Hill, the longtime House chair of the legislature’s Transportation Committee.
House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said the key is having voters this November approve locking in the revenue generated by tolls so it cannot be raided going forward.
“That is a win for Connecticut taxpayers. It’s a win for transportation advocates and it’s a win for businesses, because now you don’t have to leave three hours early to leave for Stamford,” he said.
Ritter and Guerrera’s support for tolls is not new, though they said they believe the growing recognition that necessary transportation projects don’t have a funding source could help the measure pass this year.
That’s still a tall order given that Democrats hold an extremely narrow majority of votes in the General Assembly, Republicans have not come out in support of tolls and Democrats are divided on the issue.
“Yes, this will be a tough vote, I get that,” said Guerrera, and for those against tolls, he asks, “What’s the alternative?”
Republicans have said in the past that transportation projects could be funded by prioritizing what the state borrows money for and limiting other non-transportation projects.
“This issue will certainly be debated in the coming legislative session, and public opinion will likely move around once the location and number of tolls are defined and we learn how much revenue they will generate,” said House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby.
Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano said tolls could have the unintended consequence of putting federal funding at risk.“It’s reckless to rush to approve tolls before even understanding the economics of how they would work,” said Fasano. “Connecticut needs to consider ways to fund transportation without asking for more from state taxpayers who have already been drained enough.”
Ritter disagrees that the state could reprioritize its borrowing habits to save transportation projects.
“I just don’t see how it works,” he said, saying it would sideline other important projects and the state badly needs a new funding source for transportation. “We hope common sense prevails and this passes,” he said.
Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has hinted strongly he will propose additional funding to meet the transportation programs’ needs, both in the short-term and the long-term, in his next budget plan. That plan must be submitted to the General Assembly on Feb. 7.
The Malloy administration warned Wall Street credit rating agencies in November that the new state budget short-changes the transportation program. Absent more funding, the program is headed for dramatic contraction over the next five years.
The Special Transportation Fund, which holds about $1.51 billion this fiscal year, represents about 7 percent of the overall budget. It chiefly is used to cover debt payments on transportation-related borrowing and Department of Transportation operations. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Cromwell’s northern tier industrial park soon will be home to largest building in town
CROMWELL — Construction is underway on a 28-acre parcel in the County Line Road industrial zone, where a state-of-the-art warehouse and the largest building in Cromwell eventually will be built. The plot, formerly occupied by Gardner’s Nurseries, was purchased by Indiana-based developer Scannell Properties in the town’s northern tier. A 403,000-square-foot facility will be erected on the lot next to the town’s transfer station, Town Manager Anthony J. Salvatore said Monday afternoon.
Construction crews were out Monday clearing the land near Route 9.
The business that originally expressed interest in the parcel withdrew from negotiations, so the developer decided to build the structure on speculation, hoping one or more firms will be interested in occupying the space, Salvatore said.
The town already approved a seven-year, 100-percent tax abatement for the developer, Salvatore said Scannell Properties focuses on build-to-suit and speculative development projects throughout the United States and has completed several projects in Connecticut, according to its website.
The northern tier contains most of the undeveloped and commercially zoned land in town, according to Salvatore, who said he and Director of Development and Planning/EDC Stuart Popper have been working on the deal over the past 18 months.
Economic development is on the upswing in town. A little over 2 miles down the road in the Cromwell Square shopping plaza, the Kmart and Xpect Discounts spaces at 45 Shunpike Road, vacant for a year, will soon welcome ShopRite supermarket “(The proposal) is now before the state traffic administration, so hopefully that’ll be wrapped up shortly,” Salvatore said, “and there will be another vendor or two for (the) remaining parcel. That’s in the works, but I understand they’re closer on finalizing that also.”
The town is very amenable to new businesses moving in, Salvatore said.
Last September, the same developer announced plans to build a 356,000-square-foot distribution warehouse on County Line Road, near the Rocky Hill line.
Scannell will buy the land, construct the building and then lease it to Arett Sales, which supplies some 6,500 products to “mom and pop shops,” officials said last year, and hardware and garden center stores. Arett has operated a distribution center in Bristol since 2000.
“If we hear someone is looking for something, we definitely try to fit them in where we think there’s a need and we have possible accommodations. We do that on a regular basis. It really comes down to can that entity cut a deal with the property owner,” Salvatore said. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Ansonia’s $5.2 million Wakelee Avenue rebuild to start April 1
ANSONIA-It’s historic, heavily traveled and desperately in need of a facelift.
Come April 1 reconstruction of Wakelee Avenue from Nolan Field to Division Street will begin thanks to $4,416,510 in state bonding, an additional $441,000 in state contingency funds and $441,000 from the city.
“This is great news for the residents and businesses on the West Side,” said Mayor David Cassetti as he signed a contract with J.Iapaluccio Construction of Brookfield Tuesday. “Wakelee Avenue serves as the gateway to Ansonia from Seymour and Derby. The residents will be getting a brand new street.”
Unlike other municipal highway projects which have been delayed or scuttled by the state’s budgetary crisis, the check for this project is in the city’s hands.
Plans call for straightening, milling and paving the slightly more than mile-long buckled, patched roadway which residents like Waldy Beltran describe as a roller coaster ride. Cassetti said the entire surface will be dug up, the asphalt covered turn-of-the century trolley tracks underneath removed and new drainage and catch basins installed. “Residents deserve to see their neighborhoods refurbished,” said Corporation Counsel John P. Marini. “It increases the value of their homes. It makes the city more aesthetically pleasing to investors.”
He admitted there will be “short-term inconveniences” but said they’ll “lead to a very positive long-term impact.” All of the deteriorated sidewalks on both sides of the street will be demolished and a new base with cement will be installed. Corners will have granite curbs cut for handicapped access while street lights will be installed every 75 feet.
For people like Chris Godfrey that’s “great news.” On Tuesday afternoon Godfrey slowly manipulated his crutches over the broken up sidewalk between his Pork Hollow home and Jackson Street bus stop while he and Marissa Mansfield waited for their seven-year-old son, Kevin.
“It’s about time these sidewalks were fixed,” said Godfrey, who is recovering from knee surgery.“Try pushing a baby stroller down these sidewalks.” said Mansfield. “It’s difficult. These sidewalks need to be replaced.”
What won’t be replaced Cassetti said are the cement block horse ties or the Pork Hollow monument installed in 1901 in front of Klanko’s Market. The monument commemorates the actions of colonial soldiers and civilians who hid provisions, particularly pork, from an invading British Army in 1777.
“Those monuments are very important. Please, Please be careful,” Cassetti told Kris Nigro, Iapaluccio’s vice president of construction work. She said Iapaluccio’s work includes the Brookfield and Madison streetscapes and New Haven’s Bowen Field.
The project is something Cassetti has been pushing since taking office in 2013 CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Democrats: Tolls key to state’s economic survival
HARTFORD — After years of controversy and numerous rejections in the General Assembly, Democrats on Monday said that high-speed tolling is the key to Connecticut’s economic survival.
Republicans, however, are not so certain, standing pat on a three-year-old proposal that would support transportation projects without tolls.
“We as legislators have to do the right thing,” said Rep. Antonio Guerrera, D-Rocky Hill, who as co-chairman of the legislative Transportation Committee has tried and failed in recent years to persuade lawmakers of the need for toll revenue to help fix the state’s transit infrastructure. “If we do this, this state will thrive.”
Guerrera said that as much as $800 million a year in new revenue is being left on the table because the state, which hasn’t had tolls in more than 30 years, continues to balk.
He stressed that recent polls indicate the public is ready for the type of high-speed tollings that provides hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue throughout the region.
“Our roads and our bridges are in bad shape,” he said. “Our funds are drying up. We cannot sit here, as a legislative body, and wait for something bad to happen before we have the guts, and I will say that again, before we have the guts to make a vote that will put this state on good ground. Why would any company want to move to the state of Connecticut, if they can’t bring their goods and services throughout the state in a timely fashion?” He estimated that about 40 percent of state traffic comes from outside the borders. Legislative proponents say state residents would get a discount or rebate on any tolls.
“It’s common-sense,” said House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford. “It’s high time.”
While state voters will have the opportunity in November to vote on an amendment to the Constitution to create a so-called lock box for transit-improvement funding, the issue remains a tough vote for lawmakers who have continued to defeat the proposal in recent years even as the Special Transportation Fund is on track to become insolvent.
No Republican lawmakers joined Guerrera and other Democrats, including Rep. Dorina Borer of West Haven and Chris Perone of Norwalk, during a morning news conference in the Legislative Office Building.
The state Department of Transportation is working on a study of possible locations for the electronic gantries over state highways. A previous draft plan included several tolls along the Merritt Parkway and more on I-95 between Greenwich and New Haven, as well as I-91, I-84 and limited-access highways including Route 8 “Our roads and bridges are crumbling, along with our state’s economy if we fail to act,” Perone said. “We’ve gotten to a point now where it is a critical stage. We are in a situation where failure to act now means we are going to pay a price that nobody in the state wants to pay in terms of lack of job growth, in terms of taxes that are too high.”
Borer said that while Maine tolls generate $133 million a year from tolls, Massachusetts reaps $434 million and New York collects $2.7 billion. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Everything you need to know about Plainville's water pollution control upgrades
PLAINVILLE – Voters will head to the polls Tuesday to decide on a $15.7 million upgrade project to the town’s water pollution control facility in order to comply with the state-mandated removal of phosphorus.
“There’s not a lot of choice in the matter,” said Town Manager Robert Lee.
According to the Town Charter, the referendum must be held for long-term borrowing purposes even though the project is a state requirement. The town is expected to receive a state grant to cover 41.2 percent of the total project. The town will be responsible for the remaining $9.2 million.
The new phosphorus limits require the town to reduce the amount discharged into the Pequabuck River by 88 percent.
Phosphorus is naturally occurring and essential to supporting plant growth, but becomes detrimental to aquatic life when present in excessive amounts. Too much phosphorus in fresh water, like the Pequabuck River, can lead to algal blooms as well as a reduction in water quality and fish kills.
Historically, 29 pounds of phosphorus is discharged from Plainville’s water pollution control facility on Cronk Road. The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection issued a permit to the town to reduce the amount of phosphorus to 3.49 pounds with a compliance date of July 10, 2019.
The facility was last upgraded in 2009 to remove conventional pollutants and nitrogen but did not include the removal of phosphorus. This time around the focus will be on phosphorus discharge reductions and the improvement of the sludge processing system.
The system consists of aging equipment which will be replaced with a new processing room, formerly the lime silo room.
The complete project design has already been approved by the state.
Bids for construction are expected to be received by March with a start date for the project as soon as May. The project is expected to take two years to complete.
If the referendum fails however, the town could risk losing $2 million in grants. The town could also face fines if the project is not complete by summer of 2020.
“I think it’s going to be quiet,” Lee said. “It hasn’t generated a lot of controversy.”
A public hearing was held late last year in which a few residents voiced their concerns on the financing and sewer increases associated with the project.
The Town Council recently agreed to a 4.8 percent sewer user fee increase in order to cover project expenses. The council said rates are expected to decrease by 2025.
The referendum will take place, Tuesday, Jan. 30, from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the fire house.
Lawmakers to pitch statewide road tolls
Connecticut's transportation bank account continues to approach insolvency, which promises to be a major topic in the three-month legislative session that kicks off next week.
Lawmakers are certain to discuss tolls and gas taxes as potential mechanisms to shore up the Special Transportation Fund (STF), which pays for road and bridge capital projects, bus and rail, and the operations of the Department of Transportation.
House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz (D-Berlin) said in an interview last week that he has vowed to Transportation Committee co-chairman Antonio Guerrera that he will push the topic of road tolls to the forefront.
"I've already committed to Rep. Guerrera that a vote on tolls will happen this year [in the House]," Aresimowicz said.
On Monday morning, Guerrera, a longtime advocate for tolls, announced his committee would introduce a bill calling for statewide electronic tolling.
"Why would any company want to move to the state of Connecticut if they can't bring their goods and services throughout the state in a timely fashion?" Guerrera said. "I have been saying this for four years. I knew this day was going to come."
He was joined at a press conference by House Majority Leader Matt Ritter (D-Hartford).
"As the majority leader, I'll make sure we do everything we can to pass it in the House this year," Ritter said.
Should the legislature take action on tolls before November, when voters will weigh in on a transportation funding "lockbox" that is meant to shield funds from budget-balancing raids by future legislators?
"I'm not willing to wait," Aresimowicz said. "Our transportation fund will be broke."
Meantime, Rep. Jason Rojas (D-East Hartford), said this month that he intended to propose a 4 cent hike in the state's gas tax -- a key funding source for the STF.
Guerrera said he views a gas tax increase as a potential temporary measure. He hopes the state could lower the tax below current levels over time to become more competitive with other states.
Tolls and tax increases could be key issues in an election year. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who is not running for reelection in November, has been spurring the legislature to boost transportation revenue for several years.
In 2015, Malloy released a $100 billion, 30-year transportation blueprint called "Let's Go CT."
The governor is expected to issue his own recommendations soon for how the legislature can ensure the STF's solvency. Ritter said he expects Malloy to "go big" on his calls for transportation revenue.
This month, he ordered an indefinite halt to $4.3 billion worth of projects, amounting to 41 percent of the Department of Transportation's $10.5 billion capital plan. Delayed projects range from the replacement of the Waterbury mixmaster to a widening of Interstate 95, and even routine highway maintenance and municipal road aid.
Malloy said the projects could resume once financial sources are identified to pay for them.
After a failed attempt in 2015, lawmakers last year agreed to place a constitutional lockbox question on the ballot this November.
The project postponement followed the release of a report in December by DOT and the Office of Policy and Management, warning that if STF revenues don't increase soon, the state would have to defer or cancel projects, cut paving, maintenance and snow removal operations, hike bus and rail fares and reduce service. The DOT would also have to cut 15 percent of its staff, the report said.
"As we prepare to enter a new year, I will encourage and facilitate continued dialogue with my fellow leaders in state government to ensure that action is taken, and taken soon," Malloy said last month.
A government panel studied the STF in 2015, warning that new funding sources were needed to sustain future solvency.
The panel recommended raising the gas and sales tax, reevaluating permit fees, implementing congestion tolls on major corridors, among other ideas. (The panel's final report can be downloaded here) CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
State Analysis: Transportation Fund Revenues Rising, Not Falling
Since December, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and his staff have been warning of dangerous declines in state transportation funding, but the latest figures from state experts indicate that the fund’s revenues are actually on the increase.
Overall, according to this latest state estimate, net revenues for the transportation fund are projected to rise by about $447 million during the next five years, to $1.841 billion.
The new analysis takes into account those rising transportation tax revenues, planned bus and rail fare increases, some proposed transit service cutbacks, and putting a number of proposed projects on hold. Using those assumptions, state experts project the Special Transportation Fund would have a cumulative balance of $234.2 million by June 2022.
“There’s been a change in the landscape,” Chris McClure, a spokesman for Malloy’s Office of Policy and Management, said last week. “It’s improved… so it’s not quite so dire.”
Republicans like the Senate’s top GOP leader, Len Fasano of North Haven, believe Malloy and Transportation Commissioner James P. Redeker were deliberately “overselling their case back in December … It definitely was, ‘The sky is falling,’ ” Fasano said.
The governor’s bleak warnings that the transportation system “is at a crossroads” and similar doomsday predictions from Redeker are linked to a laundry list of $4.3 billion in state projects that have been authorized but not yet funded.
The projected transportation revenue increases wouldn’t be enough to cover the cost of those big, unfunded rail and highway plans, most of which were authorized by the General Assembly in 2015. They include projects like the I-84 viaduct replacement in Hartford, the Waterbury I-84 “mixmaster,” and various new train stations along the planned New Haven-Hartford-Springfield rail service.
Malloy has repeatedly called improvements to Connecticut’s deteriorating transportation system a top goal of his tenure as governor, which ends next January. But he has been unable, largely because of major and ongoing budget deficits, to convince state lawmakers to approve things like tolls or new gas tax hikes that would be needed to pay for the ambitious transportation plans.
“This is just the status quo,” McClure said of the new transportation fund analysis, which assumes those projects would remain on hold and other spending cuts.
The House chairman of the legislature’s transportation committee, Rep. Tony Guerrera, D-Rocky Hill, said the new revenue estimates don’t change his opinion that the status quo isn’t enough.
“Nothing would get done,” Guerrera said. “Once you start adding projects costing billions of dollars, there’s no way the transportation fund can sustain that.”
Guerrera and other House Democrats this week launched a new pro-toll offensive, warning that the state’s roads and bridges will continue to deteriorate without a big injection of new funding. A recent AAA poll found that 47 percent of Connecticut residents favor tolls.
Fasano agreed that transportation funding “does have serious issues.” But he argues there are ways to fix the system without raising taxes. “You don’t need to do a gas tax [hike]…,” he said. “You don’t need tolls.”
This is a legislative election year and lawmakers are typically reluctant to approve politically unpopular measures like tax increases or tolls when they’re about to run for re-election.
Malloy said in December that the transportation fund crisis has been caused partly by a drop in state taxes on gasoline and the gross receipts of oil companies that are the primary funding sources for the transportation system. He also cited a trend toward electric cars and high-mileage vehicles as reasons for declining revenue.
New figures compiled by state treasury analysts and Malloy’s fiscal experts show revenue from the transportation tax on oil companies is projected to increase from $238.4 million in the 2016-17 fiscal year to $359.2 million by 2022 — a 50.6 percent jump. The increase in state sales taxes being directed to the transportation fund is even more dramatic: from $188.4 million in the last fiscal year to $498.8 million in 2022, a rise of more than $310 million. A big part of that rise is related to a new tax on automobile sales scheduled to take effect in 2021. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE
Other Northeastern States Bring In Big Toll Revenues
One reason Connecticut lawmakers are again considering electronic highway tolls here is the knowledge that neighboring states are raising billions of dollars in toll revenue every year.
The General Assembly’s Office of Legislative Research did a survey in September 2017 of how much seven other northeastern states are collecting in tolls. Here are the results:
New Jersey: $1.57 billion (calendar year 2016.)
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey: $1.865 billion (calendar year 2016.)
New York: $708 million (calendar year 2016.)
Pennsylvania: $1.03 billion (fiscal year ending May 31, 2016.)Massachusetts: $395 million (fiscal year 2016.)
New Hampshire: $130.7 million (fiscal year 2016.)
Maine: $133.8 million (calendar year 2016.) Rhode Island: $20.4 million (fiscal year 2016.)
Analysis Shows Over 54,000 American Bridges Structurally Deficient
The nearly 48,000-mi. interstate highway system literally moves the U.S. economy, carrying 75 percent of the nation's heavy truck traffic.
A new report finds there is the equivalent of one “structurally deficient”-rated bridge, on average, for every 27 miles of our major highway network. The 1,800 structurally deficient Interstate bridges are crossed 60 million times daily.
When it comes to bridges needing attention, however, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
According to an analysis of the U.S. Department of Transportation's just released 2017 National Bridge Inventory database, 54,259 of the nation's bridges are rated structurally deficient. If placed end-to-end, they would stretch 1,216 miles, or nearly the distance between Miami and New York City.
Cars, trucks and school buses cross these 54,259 compromised structures 175 million times every day, the data show.
The pace of improving the nation's inventory of structurally deficient bridges slowed this past year. It's down only two-tenths of a percent from the number reported in the government's 2016 data. At current pace of repair or replacement, it would take 37 years to remedy all of them, said Alison Premo Black, chief economist of the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), who conducted the analysis.
Noting President Trump is expected to address the nation's infrastructure challenges in his Jan. 30 “State of the Union” address, Black said, “An infrastructure package aimed at modernizing the Interstate System would have both short- and long-term positive effects on the U.S. economy.”
Traffic bottlenecks, she said, costs the trucking industry alone more than $60 billion per year in lost productivity and fuel, which “increases the cost of everything we make, buy or export.”
To help ensure public safety, bridge decks and support structures are regularly inspected for deterioration and remedial action. They are rated on a scale of zero to nine — with nine meaning the bridge is in “excellent” condition. A bridge is classified as structurally deficient and in need of repair if the rating on a key structural element is four or below.
While these bridges may not be imminently unsafe, they are in need of attention.
Other key findings in the ARTBA analysis:
Iowa (5,067), Pennsylvania (4,173), Oklahoma (3,234), Missouri (3,086), Illinois (2,303), Nebraska (2,258), Kansas (2,115), Mississippi (2,008), North Carolina (1,854) and New York (1,834) have the most structurally deficient bridges. The District of Columbia (8), Nevada (31), Delaware (39), Hawaii (66) and Utah (87) have the least.
At least 15 percent of the bridges in six states — Rhode Island (23 percent), Iowa (21 percent), West Virginia (19 percent), South Dakota (19 percent), Pennsylvania (18 percent) and Nebraska (15 percent) — fall in the structurally deficient category.State — and congressional district — specific information from the analysis — including rankings and the locations of the 250 most heavily travelled structurally deficient bridges in the nation and top 25 most heavily traveled in each state — is available at www.artbabridgereport.org.
Eversource proposing fee to raise customers’ bills by about $6
New London — State regulators are accepting comments from Eversource Energy customers on a proposed distribution fee hike that could see average residents' monthly bills rise by about $6 beginning in May.
In late November, Eversource asked the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to approve a distribution fee increase that would have added $13.69 to average customers' bills. But the proposed bump has been cut almost in half, with Eversource recently reaching a settlement with the Office of Consumer Counsel, an independent state agency that advocates for utility consumers.
Customers can offer comments on the proposal at a PURA-hosted hearing at New London City Hall on Tuesday, Feb. 6, at 6 p.m.
Eversource spokesman Mitch Gross said the proposed increase would help the company reduce the frequency and duration of outages, covering investments in stronger utility poles and overhead lines, upgraded system and substation equipment, continued tree trimming and technology protecting the grid from cybersecurity threats.
"It's all of the things that give us the ability to continue to make these strategic investments in the system," Gross said.
Norman Stitham, a retired South Lyme resident, said he recently received a flyer in his bill notifying him of the previously proposed $13-plus increase. He was not appeased by news that he now faced a smaller increase.
"They've got more charges and doohickeys that you wouldn't believe," Stitham said, running down the list of charges in the delivery category. "Nobody ever reads their bill. They just pay it."
The proposal to bump distribution rates follows a general rate increase earlier this month of about 1 cent per kilowatt hour. That general rate adjustment, which happens twice annually, on Jan. 1 and July 1, doesn't result in profits; Gross noted it represents the supply side of customers' bills, enabling Eversource to pay generators for the electricity it distributes.
"The delivery side is what enables us to carry on our business and do the upgrades and investments we need in technology, equipment and manpower," Gross said. "We're talking about reliable power. It's important to the economy ... and in many communities we're the top taxpayer and that's vital revenue for towns. But we certainly understand our customers' concerns."
Gross noted Eversource made a host of concessions in the settlement, including reduced return for shareholders and reduced requests for reimbursements of employee benefits.
The settlement reduced the proposed fee increase from $336.9 million to $154.5 million over the next three years.
Part of PURA's review includes an Eversource proposal to reduce a separate distribution "customer service charge" that currently stands at $19.25 monthly, to $11.88. CLICK TITLE TO CONTINUE