Two articles written by Ed Jacovino appear below:  Prague, Kissel at odds over longevity pay and Malloy says he’ll lay even more workers, unions scramble to make a deal

 

 

 

Prague, Kissel at odds over longevity pay

 

By Ed Jacovino  Journal Inquirer

Published: Friday, July 1, 2011 10:06 AM EDT

 

HARTFORD — The Senate debate Thursday over freezing bonuses for longtime state employees led to an exchange between two area lawmakers in which a Democrat came down on the side of cutting the bonuses and a Republican supported continuing them.

Sens. Edith G. Prague, D-Columbia, and John A. Kissel, R-Enfield, squared off in a debate on longevity payments — the twice-yearly bonuses paid to state employees with at least 10 years on the job. They cost the state about $40 million a year.

Prague, whose district includes Andover and Hebron, is co-chairwoman of the legislature’s Labor and Public Employees Committee and a longtime friend of organized labor.

But on Thursday, Prague argued to freeze longevity payments and remove them from the items that can be negotiated by employee unions. She also has opposed longevity payments for judges.

 

“I am not a supporter, Senator Kissel, of these longevity payments just because people have stayed in a good job for 10 years or more,” Prague said.

Kissel, meanwhile, argued to keep longevity pay. The bonuses are valuable for lower-level workers who earn salaries in the $40,000 to $50,000 range, he said. And for many workers near the top of the pay scale, the bonuses are among the only incentives they have to stay on the job, he said.

Kissel eventually voted for the bill that would freeze longevity pay and remove it from collective bargaining. But he said he framed his debate around the concerns of his constituents, many of whom are state prison guards — his district includes six prisons.

The guards overwhelmingly rejected the $1.6 billion labor concessions and savings package, and some have set their sights on Prague, who was quoted as saying employees were “stupid” to vote against the deal and that “nobody in their right mind” would turn down the agreement.

“She’s very tough on the correction officers,” Kissel said. “I understand where they’re coming from.”

The guards look at recent state investments in the busway from New Britain to Hartford and the University of Connecticut Medical Center and wonder why the state asked them for concessions, he said.

“They wanted to see the same kind of belt-tightening from the administration that was asked of them,” Kissel said.

The Senate ended up approving the measure with overwhelming bipartisan support in a 30-6 vote. It wasn’t taken up by the House of Representatives.

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Malloy says he’ll lay even more workers, unions scramble to make a deal

By Ed Jacovino  Journal Inquirer

Published: Friday, July 1, 2011 12:06 PM EDT

 

 

HARTFORD — Gov. Dannel P. Malloy will be able to trim the two-year, $40.1 billion state budget by $1.6 billion in moves he said will mean nearly 6,500 layoffs because state employee unions spurned a concession and savings package.

Lawmakers early today in a special session voted to expand Malloy’s “rescission authority,” allowing him to trim 10 percent of any state fund or appropriation to balance the budget that starts today. Until now, the governor could cut 3 percent from any fund and 5 percent from any appropriation.

The $1.6 billion Malloy expects to cut makes up nearly 4 percent of the biennial budget.

The action marks one of the first times Malloy — the state’s first Democrat governor in 20 years — didn’t get what he wanted from the Democrat-controlled General Assembly: Legislators didn’t adopt changes he’d proposed to employee contracts and collective bargaining.

They also balked at allowing him to cut $54.4 million cut from municipal aid in the 2011-12 fiscal year — a cut that would have hit towns after they’d set their budgets and issued tax bills.

Malloy wanted to freeze longevity bonuses for employees with at least 10 years on the job and remove those payments as an issue that can be collectively bargained. He’d also sought to eliminate overtime from pension calculations, expand his ability to privatize state services, and reduce paid sick days for state employees from 15 to 10.

While the Senate passed a measure concerning longevity pay and pension calculations, the House of Representatives didn’t take up the issues.

The budget cuts and collective bargaining proposals come as union leaders in the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition, or SEBAC, scramble to salvage the concessions and savings agreement they negotiated with Malloy. The deal, which would have offered four years of job security for current employees, was rejected by rank-and-file union members under complex union voting rules despite receiving 57 percent of the popular vote.

The coalition was to have met today to try to find a way to salvage the agreement. One union coalition spokesman was confident Thursday afternoon the deal would survive. Legislative leaders hoped for the same.

Passing the buck?

The measure expanding Malloy’s budget-cutting authority passed the House of Representatives in a 78-56 vote that mostly followed party lines, though Democrats from Tolland, Enfield, and Windsor Locks joined seven other members of their party in opposing the bill. It passed the Senate on a party-line vote, 21-14.

Opponents criticized legislators for ceding to the governor their authority to set the budget.

“I’m not going to pass the buck to the governor,” Sen. Kevin C. Kelly, R-Stratford, said.

House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, compared it to putting Malloy in the driver’s seat. “On June 30, 2011, I handed the keys over to the governor’s office — I said I’m not going to do that part of my job.” Cafero said, mocking what those who supported the measure would have to say to their constituents.

But while Cafero was clear that in opposing the expanded rescission authority, he doesn’t oppose Malloy’s right to order layoffs. “The executive branch has exclusive rights to issue layoffs. It has nothing to do with us,” he said.

Granting to the governor the legislature’s ability to adjust spending by program or department is another matter, he said. “He is taking our authority away. And, unfortunately, the majority party is now essentially giving him that right.” Cafero said.

But Democratic leaders said the measure offered them enough oversight. “We are not ceding our authority to the governor, we are taking decisive action,” House Majority Leader J. Brendan Sharkey of Hamden said.

The bill requires Malloy to present his cuts to the legislature by Friday, July 15. Legislative leaders could hold another special session before Aug. 31 to make changes to the budget.

“We have the ability to act on it,” said Rep. Toni E. Walker, D-New Haven, a co-chairwoman of the budget-writing Appropriations Committee.

Byran Hurlburt of Tolland, Kathleen Tallarita of Enfield, and Peggy Sayers of Windsor Locks joined seven other House Democrats in voting against the bill.

“We have a responsibility — that’s spending in the state,” Hurlburt said. “I don’t feel like we had enough control over the proposal.”

On Tuesday, Malloy released his initial budget-cutting plan. It called for 5,500 layoffs and the elimination of 1,000 more vacant positions. Layoff notices started being issued Wednesday.

“Our goal has been achieved: Connecticut has a budget in place that is balanced honestly, with no gimmicks,” Malloy said in a statement early today. “To be clear, that’s not a reason to celebrate. The $1.6 billion deficit we just closed involves a lot of pain for a lot of people, in the form of thousands of layoffs and deep spending cuts.”

Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show today, Malloy said the state must make progress toward addressing budget problems that have been 20 years in the making. He added that while negotiation should be the first step in addressing union contracts, other measures must be taken if talks break down.

Funding for towns spared

Malloy’s proposal also called for a 2.4 percent cut to state grants to cities and towns, or more than $54 million each year of the budget. He’d asked the legislature for the authority to cut up to 3 percent from town aid grants, but legislators rejected that proposal.

Administration officials say that will mean an additional 1,000 layoffs to make up the money, bringing the total layoffs to 6,500. Malloy also expects to cut 1,000 vacant positions.

James Finley, executive director of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, had lobbied to keep municipal grants out of the cuts. He released lists of cuts by town on Wednesday. A table of cuts by legislative district was published Thursday.

They worked.

“Our caucus was very clear that they wanted to make sure that the cuts to municipalities — which was something we’d never done in terms of rescission — isn’t part of the agreement.” House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan, D-Meriden, said.

Democrats snub some proposals

The Senate passed a measure that would freeze longevity payments, remove them from collective bargaining, and make base salary the only factor in pension calculations — eliminating bonuses, overtime, and other pay, such as mileage reimbursements, from the mix. The Senate balked at other Malloy proposals, including cutting sick days and privatizing more state services.

All of that became moot, though, when the House of Representatives didn’t take up the measure.

Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, said the proposals were “for show,” and said Malloy wouldn’t have put them out there if he thought they’d pass.

“It is just about showing that they’re tough, when in fact they really aren’t,” he said.

But Roy Occhiogrosso, Malloy’s senior adviser, said the governor wasn’t bluffing.

“They would know what ‘for show’ means,” Occhiogrosso said of Republicans. If the “legislature puts that bill on his desk, then he’ll sign it.”

The Senate voted 30-6 to adopt the bill, with four Democrats and two Republicans voting against.

And though the House didn’t take up the measure, Donovan indicated his chamber still could act before the end of the summer.

“If there is no agreement, we may be dealing with these issues,” he said. “I would think that the state employees would take notice that the bill is alive and on our desk.”

Unions, meanwhile, had come to the Capitol to oppose the measures.

“I’m hearing some bad things are going to come through in the Senate,” Salvatore Luciano, executive director of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 4 said before debate started.

The union scramble

But union officials also appeared confident that they would be able to ratify the concessions agreement and stave off the layoffs.

“I don’t know exactly what the path forward’s going to be,” Matthew O’Connor, a SEBAC spokesman, said. “But there is a path forward.”

The bill that passed early today gives the unions a 60-day window to ratify the agreement or come up with another that saves the $1.6 billion.

The coalition of unions leaders had planned to meet today. Rather than cast a vote Monday to reject the concessions agreement that the week before had gone down to defeat in union voting, they decided to wait and pursue other options. Word circulated at the Capitol late Thursday that they had found a way to turn the result into an approval.

Malloy has said he won’t renegotiate the deal with the unions.

“If they choose to ratify the agreement that was recently turned down, and if they do so in a timely fashion, much of the pain that’s been inflicted over the past few days can be reversed,” Malloy said.

But Donovan said any concession agreement is a good one.

“There can be new negotiations, old negotiations — any negotiations that come to an agreement where we save $1.6 billion,” he said. “That is what we hope we have. We don’t want to take the time of laying people off or cutting services. We want there to be an agreement.”