Without union concessions, big consolidations yield small savings

Man proposes, but God disposes. Malloy goes on a spending spree as if the resources at his disposal are unlimited, and then blames the state workers for the deficit. The sycophants that surround Malloy are not fazed. The banks will soon refuse to accept the checks drawn on the state treasury, because those accounts will be in red. Soon, red will be the true state color all around us.

lol... Toni Harp, "we knew this wasn't a spit in the ocean, that's why we passed that sham budget that ya'll rejected"
"Don't you get it? The fix was in and you missed the sign..."
Just the fact that there are 80+ commissions and agencies doing who knows what all day tells you all you need to know.
It is beyond the capacity of the legislature and unfortunately this governor to step back and ask "what is the minimum that citizens really need the State to do for them?" and after that, "how can we change the cost of living in this State so that people will not flee if they aren't trapped by age or poverty?"

If Malloy was really interested in reducing State Employee spending and sharing the pain he would have included reducing his staff and that of legislators also. By reducing those employees that provide services to the public, he is taking away those services residents/voters/taxpayers. By looking at reducing these same employees making half the salary of his administrative staff, our Governor Malloy is attacking at the low end wage earners resulting in loss of services directly affecting residents. If our Governor really wanted to reduce waste and State payroll, he too would take a pay cut, reduction in his benefits and those that he has appointed to excessive overstaffed manager positions resulting in little if any benefit to residents. Having political supporters in highly paid manager positions that don't supervise others is nothing but a waste of money and the other FACE of an arrogant Governor who would sacrifice services to keep his political friends in the money. I challenge the news media to actually look into how many aids and managers it took for Malloy to buy the support he needed to become the Governor. One only needs to look at the DOC, DOT, DMV offices and staffing.

If cost savings and reduction in State employees was the goal of consolidating agencies then our Governor was way off target and now wants to blame State employees for his inadequacy on the State budget process. With consolidation, one would attempt to reduce redundant processes not create more layers levels of bureaucracy/management. Malloy should have looked into consolidating agencies such as all hazardous duty agencies with one department head and a deputy overseeing each of the consolidated departments. He could have consolidate State Police, DOC, DEP, Marshalls, and DMV into one department using one Human Relations Department, one Public Relations Dept., One Payroll Department, etc. Get the picture. Who loses, his highly paid friends he placed in these departments as patronage payback for their support in getting him elected. Do the math. Another area that is highly abused is rehiring retired employees back to do specific jobs. The legislature and Governor could have stopped this process without having to go for union concessions and got immediate reductions. Do the math.

We have 9.1% unemployment in CT currently according to the media this w/e. Laying off 6-7,000 employees would obviously increase this substantially. Releasing hundreds of Inmates by closing prisons now adds even more unemployed people in the State. Results of this will be: 1) The State will have to pay more unemployment compensation increasing the budget expense for that department. 2) Increasing crime rates, as one can already see the number of robberies and burglaries currently plaguing our State. This will affect insurance costs for all here in CT as claims increase so do our rates. Increased costs for police, if we even have enough coverage since they too may be cut. 3) Overcrowded jails/prisons for which the State was already taken to court several years ago and ordered to reduce the population.

Our elected officials need to start looking at how to create jobs. Not eliminate them. For every worker that loses their job, multiple businesses lose. From the restaurants to the department stores. As more people can't afford to spend, sales tax revenue declines. Welcome to the downward economic spiral. Let's keep eliminating jobs, raising sales & income taxes, hitting business with taxes on their inventory after they have already paid a tax on it, and keep spending money on political patronage jobs. Let's spend (or pour down the drain) more on extending rte.11, UCONN medical center, and create new agencies like the one for Bradley IAP. Our legislators already gave up some of their responsibility to the Governor, how much more will they give up as part of their shared sacrifice?

To Jackie and the others who think that wage freezes and furlough days should satisfy Malloy - you are forgetting that since the begining of all this, a huge chunk of savings that the Governor was looking for had to come from embedded, long term cuts in the budget. Rightly or wrongly, the point is that he would (and probably never will accept state employee cuts that don't include long term health and pension savings...I'm not suggesting that you have to like his proposals or vote for them but I am saying that it's not likely that he will accept the shorter term alternatives that have been suggested. As for a shorter work week, I have to admit that I don't know how that would fly but perhaps that could be considered as it would affect pension levels through a reduced income of 35 hours vs 40....I retired in 2009 (thank God) but for most of my 40+ years career we worked 35 hrs/wk then got moved to 40. Even though we received the pay to go with it, lots of us would have preferred to stay at 35 hours. Good luck to all of you. It's sad that this has to be an issue to wreck a preciously short summer....

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I fail to see how the union concessions have anything to do with consolidations. The consolidations themselves would have saved the same (small) amount had the concession package passed.

As for the DDS issue, I think that agency and its budget are doomed regardless. I regret that I cannot recall where, but I read a comment from the new DDS commissioner indicating that the private non-profit providers were struggling and needed more clients/money to be sustained. Propping up PNP providers is not a reason to privatize. Hard, verifiable savings in the long term is a reason to privatize the industry. Being the former head of a PNP, the commissioner in my opinion is hardly objective in making such a decision. Privatizing, paying front line workers minimal wages and paying several executive directors large salaries saves little to nothing. It does however make the rich richer and the poor, poorer so to speak.

"notasnobbystate..." I don't know about that video you referred to, but I think you're right on regarding ther unions' failure to adequately educate their membership, that these "blogs" are merely intended to get people discussing things and voicing their opinions, and that major decisions (like voting outcomes etc.) should be based on *facts* rather than opinions and people trying to "convince" every one else that *their* "opinion" is the "right" opinion. Having said that, let's face it - there's a REASON why people love to engage in debates and argumentation (and by "argumentation" I don't mean the common arguing that people do so often)... because it's FUN.

state employees should do what it really means when private sector workers reject contracts:
STRIKE.
Guaranteed if part of the vote meant taking concessions, or going on strike, this would have passed, because at the end of the day there is a lot of hot air but no real guts to actual DO something other than complaining and throwing tantrums on these comment boards and/or anonymously creating a website about "voting no" and thinking thats some sort radical action.
you asked for it now take it, layoffs, double work, worse public services, privatization, and an employer who will remember this is 2017.

CTsense??? We asked for it??? Real interesting. Double work?? Real interesting???? No real guts???? Real interesting. Strike-We cant, NO STRIKE CLAUSE...Tantrums on comment boards?? Well, that is even more interesting. You just threw one. Do not wish misfortune on anyone as it will inhibit you....

To SteveHC - I would have to respectfully disagree with you relative to the importance of dues to the Unions. Unless things have changed considerably since July, 2009 when I retired, the unions were loathe to do anything to support individual members within their respective unions if it meant that that employee would be reclassified (read promoted) into another Union, or, God forbid, into management (MP). I'm speaking specifically of P4, P5, and to a lesser degree, clerical...FOr many years, I had responsibility for reorganization and expansion of our Department, creating new job descriptions, hiring a wide variety of staff members (attorneys, engineers, rate specialists, finance, accountants, consumer assistant reps, etc., etc.) and creating new staffing positions. Throughout the years, the biggest detriment was not OLR, DAS, or OPM - the problem was with the Unions and their constant concern about losing dues paying members. If you want a real challange, try reclassifying a union job class into a management position..you can get approvals all the way up the line but try to get it through the Union. This happened dozens of times through the years. The relevance of all of this to todays problems concerning the SEBAC Agreement is that I firmly believe that one way or the other, without a doubt, the Unions will do whatever they can possibly do to absolutely minimize layoffs..I feel really bad for the active employees that have to go through heck this summer, many receiving layoff notices, and listening to daily reports from the Capitol concerning the number of layoff notices issued on any given day, until finally, in the 11th hour, they are recinded when the Union works out something that the majority of their members might support...

"Bob ig Glastonbury" - When you say "try reclassifying a union job class into a management position..you can get approvals all the way up the line but try to get it through the Union. This happened dozens of times through the years" I know EXACTLY what you mean, because I had similar responsibilities. The problem with getting a job *CLASS* reclassified from a unionized class to a managerial (and thus NON-unionized) class - as opposed to getting an INDIVIDUAL EMPLOYEE reclassified - is that you're essentially expecting a UNION to approve the idea of *removing the collective bargaining rights* of everyone IN that class - and NO union in its right mind would EVER agree to such a thing. It's a matter of preserving bargaining rights for as many people as possible, NOT "preserving union dues." NATURALLY the *STATE* would LOVE it if ALL of its job classes were "managerial" - as then they'd not have to deal with any unions at all LOL!!! PLENTY of companies and organizations have tried to pull that stunt before, and thank God federal and state courts - as well as federal and state labor laws and regs - have generally prohibited it. It's an oft-tried UNION-BUSTING tactic.

Now if you're talking about reclassifying an INDIVIDUAL from a classified, unionized position into a non-unionized, managerial job class (regardless of whether that managerial class already exists, and regardless of whether or not such a position is "open" for refill nif that class DOES already exist), that's a totally different story - and there's no union involvement in that decision-making process at all.

Wow cigna is coming to connecticut and its only going to cost us 50 million for 200 jobs. That should help our unemployment rate malloy has really shown himself to be what he is, an arrogant, self-serving bully with connecticut,s credit card that he won't have to pay, but will be coming back to the state employees in the future to pick up the tab with more concessions. He's out of control somebody needs to reel him in.