Knowledge is telling the past. Wisdom is predicting the future.

It's been another week of tense and stressful living in these United States. The seemly never ending barrage of media stories about the public health emergency facing us all and the minute by minute actions by federal, state and local governments have all of us swirling.

Historically, questions for this week in our lobbying firm would have been: What's on the agenda in the XYZ committee? Does it have substitute language, and what does it do? Are there enough votes to pass/kill the bill? What's the next step if it gets out of committee?

Not one of those questions were heard in Sullivan & LeShane or in the halls of state government. Our team has been busy helping clients access the resources they need to keep their shops and doors open, to retool their operations to fill voids and to turn the vulnerabilities they face into an opportunity to do good things. From childcare providers to manufacturing, physician practices to power generators, telecommunication to technology services, we've been connecting the dots and making things happen.

After last week's announcement by the Governor of a de facto shutdown of in-office businesses/workplaces, employers were faced with how to keep employees safe but engaged so their businesses could continue to do business. Unfortunately, many have not been able to find that balance. Well over 100,000 employees have been laid off while many others are using their leave time to cover their absences from work with little knowledge of when this all will end.

What we know for sure is that normal will never be normal. Down the road, the new normal will be a smaller business community and a government that has made enormous accommodations in regulatory operations, policies and general operations in order to keep the doors of industry open.

In another story in this newsletter, we update you on the top line of both CT's new economic package for businesses and municipalities as well as the just approved federal plan for stimulating a variety of sectors like healthcare, manufacturing, education and large and small businesses. So, I'll stay away from that.

I did want to bring attention to the forgotten folks who are trudging away in the state, town and city halls, struggling to balance the need to keep their community safe, provide the support where ever possible but also to figure out how they are going to pay for the immediate needs to meet all those requirements. With folks out of work and the second half of local property taxes due in July 1 ^st, town leaders are thinking about how to secure the approval of their town budgets, float the increased education costs as well as develop a long-term plan for keeping their town's business and industry alive until better days.

Then there's the state elected and appointed officials who for the past three weeks have been working 24/7. They've been on the front lines gathering information, assessing and making tough recommendations on how to create a stable base to start rebuilding. With no ability to predict when the self-isolation and social distancing restrictions can be lifted, many are talking about when it's appropriate to pivot to what's next - creating the new normal.

Now, my last observation from this week. With fall elections coming up in eight months, we're starting to see long-time, respected members of the General Assembly announce their plans to retire and not seek re-election. It would not surprise us if we see an unusually large group of legislators who announce their departure in the next three to four weeks. With the looming budget issues of FY2021-22 as a result of already baked in deficits in the state budget and now the expectation of a drain on the rainy day fund as well as the significant drop in state revenues, many see this as the time to hang up the shoes.

For them, the race is about to end. We'll keep you posted.