Last Wednesday Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced his proposed budget. Several important programs at DSS have been cut. The Governor’s budget:

• Kicks low income adults off HUSKY-including pregnant women, and moves them to Access Health where they will have to PAY insurance premiums
• CLOSES the Torrington DSS office
• ELIMINATES 13 DSS positions
• ELIMINATES funding for programs like the Human Services Infrastructure Community Action Program which helps many people with benefits and provides the funding match for SNAP outreach

There are better choices! Legislators need to hear our stories and ideas. They need to hear from you. Email, call, or testify that:

• We don’t need more cuts, we need REVENUE
• Health coverage for low income people, including pregnant women, MUST continue through HUSKY
• ADD staff and offices to DSS, DON’T cut them
• DSS MUST be responsive to service providers and our neighbors who depend on it by fulfilling its promise to have a phone line and portal for social service providers and getting wait times down and/or implementing a call back system
• DSS modernization is NOT WORKING and MUST CHANGE

There are two chances to talk about the proposed budget: Thursday, Feb. 26th @ 12 (Human Services Committee public hearing) and Friday the 27th @ 5 (Appropriations Committee public hearing). If you can’t attend either hearing you can email the Committees (in Word or PDF)at [email protected] and [email protected].

If you want to know more or want to testify, please email Lucy Nolan [email protected] or Nancy Boone [email protected].