Hi, aliasaurus. Sorry I missed your question before the decision date, but if you still have any questions about UConn, feel free to drop me a PM. I just finished my second year of the PhD program at UConn.
I can tell you that our department has done a good job of weathering the state budget storm so far. We were down a few professors for a while, so the grad students picked up some of the workload, but we have 4-5 new hires starting this fall. And our funding has remained very good compared to the cost of living in the Storrs area. (Plus there are opportunities to teach over wintersession and summer terms.)
Also, the department just made a change to the requirements that will affect you if you're starting this year: the field exam has been eliminated in favor of a field paper. The idea is that this will help students start focusing in on their dissertation topic earlier, which IMHO is a good idea. (Of course, you still have to take prelims in micro and macro.)