Millions for Bowers and Buckley

Manchester
October 1, 2020
I’m happy to announce that we accomplished a lot for Manchester and the State during yesterday's special session.

Bowers and Buckley elementary schools were included in H.B. 7010, which passed during the special session, and will provide millions in funding for those schools' construction projects.
  • Estimated grant funding for Bowers Elementary is $21,789,040 with estimated project costs at $32,800,000.
  • Estimated grant funding for Buckley Elementary is $19,530,420 with estimated project costs at $29,400,000
Rep. Luxenberg advocates for victims of crumbling foundations during a 2019 bill signing with Governor Lamont and fellow members of the Crumbling Concrete Caucus
The house also passed legislation that made improvements to the low interest loan program I helped create last year with a bipartisan group of legislators for crumbling concrete victims.

The legislation broadens eligibility, granting associations access to the low interest loans, benefiting more middle class and working class condo owners in Manchester and across the State.
I began addressing the issue of crumbling foundations back in 2013, and in 2019 after seeing its effect on the Manchester community, founded the bipartisan crumbling concrete caucus to work on the issue.

In the State Bond Commission's July 21 meeting, they approved the fourth out of five installments of $20 million for the Crumbling Foundations Assistance Fund.
Yesterday, we also worked to hold big utility companies accountable and address pressing issues raised by constituents with the Take Back Our Grid Bill.

The Legislation Will:
  1. Establish Performance Based Ratemaking
    • Establishes standards the utilities must meet
    • Develops metrics for determining progress
    • Allows the issuance of penalties if the utilities fail to meet the standard
  2. Require the utilities to provide bill credits from $25 daily to a $250 total claim for food and medicine, as well as reduced charges to residential customers without power lasting more than 96 hours.
  3. Tie the portion of executive salaries that come from ratepayers to the company's performance.
  4. Develop minimum staffing levels for lineman, communications personnel and others to make sure the utilities respond to storms quickly and convey timely information to their customers.

We are not done addressing the issues of significant rate increases in July and poor performance during Tropical Storm Isaias due to PURA's on-going investigations into both these issues.