Fool me once

Jon Lender has another eye-opener in the Hartford Courant today explaining the potential for double-dipping by highly-paid state employees who are set to take advantage of a proposed retirement package.

Two things occur to me. If someone is too valuable to send off to retirement, then shouldn't that position be excepted from the proposed package?

But more outrageous is the number of state employees earning six figures. Lender mentions three or four of those employees by name. But how many more employees make over $100 grand. When I was first looking for employment, during a recession in 1976, I worked temporarily for the state. The line of thinking then was, if you take a job with the state, you are trading away the higher potential salary of a private sector job (and the risks involved) for the security of long-term, steady employment with great healthcare and retirement benefits.

When did that line of thinking shift to include state jobs which pay more than the private sector?

One might understand a state deputy treasurer, with large fiduciary responsibilities, making more than $100,000 (though I blanch at salary of $163,000 and retirement of $114,000). But can we really stomach a PR man for UCONN earning $200,000 as Scott Brohinsky does? For god's sake, this is a guy who handles calls from the press for UCONN, not the president of UCONN, not the most noted scientist or poet at UCONN, but the lobbyist and public relations guy!

I hope Lender follows the line of reasoning and reveals just how many state employees have leveraged a steady, safe, risk-free employment situation into a life of riches and privelege.

The state gravy train

As content in the Hartford Courant gets lighter and lighter, it's with pleasure that I look forward to Sunday and the newest revelation of state malfeasance from Jon Lender, Kevin Rennie and now our old Middletown reporter Josh Kovner, who's showing his skills as an investigative reporter.

I started my career, post Hartford Times stringer, in the State of Connecticut Labor Department (Unemployment Compensation Division). During the mid-seventies recession is was a place of refuge for recent grads who couldn't find a "real" job. If I knew then, what I know now, I might have considered a career as a state employee. In those days, the lack of competitive compensation was ameliorated by a generous benefits package.

Unfortunately, most state employees labor their entire careers in modest-paying bureaucratic jobs, but apparently there are a chosen few, like some at the UCONN Medical School, who are allowed to double-dip, or who win contracts, as Kevin Rennie points out, that seem fit for royalty.

And as Josh Kovner demonstrates, our worst instincts are true. Our state legislators, by and large, have no idea how to work in the real world, so even when their stints as legislators, and legislative employees are through, they're given per diem contracts so they can hang around the Capitol and bask in the reflected glory.

I'm beginning to think that the idea of a part-time legislature, with amateur legislators who eventually return to real-world jobs, is a pipe dream which we will never wake from. After all, how can we expect the chickens to come home to roost when the foxes are guarding the henhouse.

Our tone deaf speaker of the house

Chris Donovan just doesn't know when to quit. First we find out that he wanted to hire the just-ex-speaker Jim Amann as his special assistant at a salary (read: cost to taxpayers) of $120,000.

Both Donovan and Amann, who is planning to run for governor, decided it wasn't a wise plan, after it was publicized and the tax paying constituents went apeshit.

Now this. Donovan, who seems to have a special gift for making decisions which will resonate like a sour note to constituents, has hired a press secretary at a salary of $165,000 a year.

As a writer, far be it from me to complain about one who has figured out how to pull down $165,000 a year. And he was making $245k at his last gig. But it pains me to think that I own a communications business, with employees, and we all pay taxes to hire a state employee who is pulling down a good bit more than me, and has a benefit package that is the envy of any private sector employee.

And his job?

To make the Speaker of the House look good.

Well, it looks like the speaker will need someone to burnish his reputation at this rate.

BTW, kudos to Jon Lender and the Hartford Courant for the diligent work and the good sense to expose the weaknesses of our leaders. It seems to be a common thread among the Courant's columnists, as Colin McEnroe and Susan Campbell and Kevin Rennie and Helen Ubiñas take up the same theme.

Look up the word feckless in the dictionary, and it's illustrated with a map of Hartford.

Losing faith in political leaders close to home

(State Dem leaders laugh at you.)

Don't let the dreamlike optimism of Barack Obama's impending inauguration lull you into a false sense of complacency that the Democrats who represent you are "the good guys."

There's plenty of evidence right here in Connecticut this week that power and money are the fuels which power our professional political class.

First we learned how new Connecticut State House Speaker Chris Donovan, a man whom the Hartford Courant portrayed as motivated by high ideals and progressive policies, stooped to insider politics immediately by hiring former Speaker James Amann as a $120,000 adviser. Amann, who is running for governor, will have his new salary paid by you and your fellow taxpayers.

Read Colin McEnroe on Donovan's first betrayal of his "ideals."

And today, the Courant reports twice about the ongoing misdeeds of powerful Democratic State Senator Thomas Gaffey. The reports reflect badly on Senate Democrats who refused to take up an investigation of Gaffey. It also indicts Senate leader Don Williams, to whom Gaffey is a trusted adviser, and the Elections Enforcement Commission, which seems to be leaning toward a toothless negotiated settlement.

This has lead Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy to request that Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane launch a criminal investigation into Gaffey's actions.

If the facts are true, that Gaffey double-dipped for years into his PAC, and state funding for his ongoing political expenses, then the Senate ought to drum Gaffey out. Instead, they seem to be protecting him. Read what Kevin Rennie has to say.

These are the Democrats who will "save" us from Republican Governor Jodi Rell, and the punitive politics of the Bush era.

Right.

Jim Amann's allergic reaction to ethics

Jon Lender is at it again, digging in the details and finding dirt. Today he reported that according to Representative Chris Caruso, the office of House Speaker James Amann "meddled and tried to weaken the new ethics rules," about to be passed by the house after many hours of legitimate debate.

Of course Amann's office had a ready excuse, just as he did when he called a last minute, and short session which caused taxpayers a $50k fee for interrupting the work of a contractor at the state capitol, and just so happened to be on a day when Amann was hosting a Christmas party in Hartford - a party, which might not have been well attended if lawmakers weren't in Hartford.

This is the same Amann who saw no problem in strong arming lobbyists to contribute to the non-profit (Multiple Sclerosis Society) he was employed by. In fact, Amann continued the strong arming until he was ordered to by a state ethics department.

Amann, who is reportedly preparing for a run for governor, also support Joe Lieberman over Ned Lamont in the last election for US Senator.

Seems like Amann received his degree in political science in Waterbury.