Hartford - Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's administration no longer wants to turn 16 state-run technical high schools over to local districts and hopes instead to find ways to strengthen them under state control, a high-ranking official says.

Mark Ojakian, deputy secretary of the state Office of Policy and Management, said this week that members of a task force studying the schools' future feel strongly about keeping them under the state Department of Education's management.

Although the task force is still required to analyze benefits and drawbacks of turning the schools over to the local districts, Ojakian, who's the group's chairman, said he considers it unlikely given the task force members' sentiments and budgetary breathing room accomplished through labor concessions.

"We intend to meet our statutory charge to conduct that cost-benefit analysis," he said, but as for relinquishing the state-run schools, "I don't think it's of particular interest to the administration right now to proceed down that path."

-Associated Press