A review of Connecticut’s salary records published by the center-right Yankee Institute (YI) Thursday indicated that 2,927 state employees received higher salaries than the governor in 2021.
State statute confers a $150,000 yearly salary on Governor Ned Lamont (D). Approximately 2,000 state employees earned higher pay than him through 2017. Over the next three years, that number rose by nearly 1,000.
The highest number of state workers whose pay exceeded Lamont’s – 534 of them – were employed by the University of Connecticut Health Center. The next highest number, 506, worked for the university itself. Other state institutions paying employees above $150,000 include the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (366), the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (230), the state judiciary (194) and the Department of Correction (143).
YI is drawing Nuttmeggers’ attention to these figures as their legislators consider approving lavish contracts the Lamont administration recently negotiated with the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC). Under the deals, each unionized state worker would get $3,500 in bonuses as well as three annual wage increases of 2.5 percent, which would be made retroactive to 2021. Roughly two-thirds of workers affiliated with SEBAC would also receive “step” raises, i.e., elevation to the next pay level.
Many workers would see their pay rise by more than one-fifth if the General Assembly ratifies the agreements. Altogether, they would result in new costs of $1.9 billion for taxpayers at the absolute minimum over the next four years, according to YI Research Director Ken Girardin. State residents can expect costs to grow even further once new salary negotiations resume in 2024, as the contracts contemplate.
Another result that contract opponents anticipate after the deals go into effect is a compromising of state services, insofar as projected revenue growth likely won’t keep pace with the contracts’ costs.
“The first thing taxpayers are going to see is an immediate crowding-out of other state priorities,” Girardin told The Connecticut Star. “This proposal adds more to state spending in the fiscal year starting July 2023 than the state expects taxes to grow that year, which means we are already pre-spending that money, essentially.”
YI has noted that the state has often ratified generous compensation agreements with unions at times when existing revenue intake could not fully fund them. This has exacerbated Connecticut’s tax burden which – when both state and local taxes are taken into account – stands as the second-highest among states according to the nonprofit Tax Foundation.
In addition to rejecting the SEBAC contracts, Girardin says Connecticut ultimately should do away with collective bargaining for pension and healthcare benefits, a system that most states don’t utilize. He observes that even deep-blue New York differs from Connecticut in this respect and has much better-funded public-sector pensions.
He also suggests that the Constitution State should abolish binding arbitration in labor negotiations. While some defenders of the SEBAC deals, like Connecticut Insider columnist Dan Haar, are warning that their rejection by the General Assembly would simply return the matter to binding arbitration and result in an even costlier outcome for taxpayers, Girardin points out that such an outcome – if it actually materializes – would be of the state’s own making since it allows binding arbitration to begin with.
Girardin said he does not see it as probable that the legislature would worsen the fiscal scenario by disapproving the SEBAC deals and forcing the issue back to the bargaining table. He faulted Haar’s analysis for failing to take into account the non-wage components of the contracts.
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Connecticut Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Ned Lamont” by Ned Lamont.
