“What’s going on right now is a tragedy and is hurting everybody,” says Elliot Spector regarding the protests against police throughout the country. “We will have more lives lost because of the attacks on police […]
Civil Service Reform
The University of Connecticut made a number of excessive payments to staff who had either stepped down from management positions or left the university, according to a state audit released yesterday. In one instance a former manager - identified as vice provost for the university libraries, Brinley Franklin - was paid his full management salary of $202,829 to be an off-site, part-time consultant.
The excessive payments were just part of the audit which faulted the public university for allocating $49.1 million of UConn 2000 funds to projects that were not authorized by state statute.
Five assistant attorneys general filed a petition with the Connecticut State Board of Labor Relations today in an effort to force a vote on unionization by secret ballot before the board recognizes a new union in the Attorney General’s Office.
The AAGs claim that failure to hold a secret ballot would violate their “fundamental and statutory right to oppose unionization.” The petitioners claim that no other group, including their employer, would defend them on their stated issues they face “a substantial and immediate threat” to their rights to oppose unionization.
The American Federation of Teachers filed a petition with the state labor board on Monday in an attempt to unionize 196 assistant attorney generals. The petition will launch an investigation beginning with a preliminary conference on September 13 that will be closed to the public.
In order to present a petition to the State Labor Relations Board, at least 30 percent of the employees must have signed union cards. The board checks the signatures on the cards for validation and to confirm they were not signed under pressure.
The Nevada Policy Research Institute and the Association of American Educators released results of a 27-state survey of union households on Friday showing that 28.7 percent of union workers would opt out of membership if given the choice.
The survey found that 66.9 percent of union members believed that a worker should be able to opt out of membership and represent themselves in negotiations with an employer – an idea that has come to be known as “worker’s choice.”
While components of Malloy’s proposal were controversial the ultimate motivations shouldn’t be. Connecticut should put people in prison to ensure public safety, but putting more people in prison than necessary is a waste of resources, not to mention human potential. After leaving prison, punishment should end and new opportunities should begin. Whether you believe in forgiveness or second chances, or simply want to prevent people from resuming criminal activity, we can share this goal.
[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] When we imagine a “state employee” we tend to think of state troopers patrolling I-95 or DOT crews plowing and maintaining I-84. These are demanding […]
Criminals getting state pensions.
Professors using a one time opportunity to change retirement plans for six years.
If Connecticut lawmakers do not muster the strength to make such common-sense changes to the way state pensions are handled, than we may have a long road ahead of us to get Connecticut back on track.
At the Department of Transportation’s training facility in Newington massive sheets of paper are taped to the walls and lined with blue painter’s tape and dotted with multi-colored post-it notes and cut-out paper stars. In the room are perhaps ten employees with the Office of Early Childhood Development. There is a table with snacks of Goldfish crackers and bottled water.
This is a Kaizen training session. Part of Connecticut’s LeanCT program aimed at making government more efficient.
The General Assembly passed a budget last week that stops driving Connecticut backward. The question is: will we take the next step and start driving forward?
Last year, lawmakers passed the second-largest tax increase in state history, just five years after the largest tax increase. This year’s budget, while not good, was at least a temporary rejection of last year’s approach. It remains to be seen whether it was really a change of direction or merely a case of election-year stagefright.
