Fazio calls for action on unfunded state employee promises

By Scott Benjamin

GREENWICH – Republican candidate Ryan Fazio says that although the 36th state Senate District has a robust economy and is adding corporate giants, its future will be impacted by the state government’s unfunded employee obligations and an energy system that needs to adopt more renewable applications.

Stamford has three Fortune 500 companies, with another, Philip Morris International, on the way, and Greenwich has two businesses on that coveted list. The district has a considerable number of hedge funds. CT Hearst reported in May that Greenwich is the “dominant” real estate market in Connecticut.

Donald Klepper-Smith, who chaired former Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s (R-Brookfield) economic team, told Patch.com this spring that the Stamford-Greenwich corridor is one of two sections of Connecticut that he believes could have significant growth over the coming years.

“However, the economy is weak in the state,” cautioned Fazio, 31, who faces Democrat Alexis Gevanter and petitioning candidate John Blankley in the August 17 special election in the district, which includes all of Greenwich, part of New Canaan and the northern section of Stamford. All three candidates live in Greenwich. Blankley was the Democratic nominee in the district in 2016.

Two-term Democrat Alex Kasser of Greenwich vacated the seat in June. In 2018 she was the first Democrat elected in the 36th District since 1930. If Fazio wins the special election, the Democrats would be one seat short of a two-thirds super-majority in the upper chamber. The state Senate had been in an 18-all tie at the time of Kasser’s election three years ago. Kasser narrowly defeated Fazio, a member of Greenwich Representative Town Meeting, last November to annex a second term.

Regarding the economy, Fazio added, “The headwinds of the state against the district are pretty significant.”

Klepper-Smith told Patch.com this spring that Connecticut has about 140,000 fewer people employed than in 2008 and it was the only New England state following the Great Recession that didn’t recapture all of the jobs it lost during the 2008 crisis.

WalletHub reported in July that Connecticut was tied for 48th among the states in job recovery since the end of the pandemic.

Beyond that, Fazio said in an interview with Patch.com that, “The balance sheet is a $4.5 billion rainy day fund against a $100 billion unfunded liability” in promises to state employees for pension benefits and health care coverage.

A Wall Street Journal editorial last November noted that Fitch Ratings has reported that Connecticut’s unfunded pension liability is the second worst in the country, after Illinois. The 2018 state Commission on Fiscal Stability & Economic Competitiveness report stated that the pensions were only 29 percent funded.

Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) recently told the CT Hearst editorial board that, “We are running a marathon with cement overshoes. Twenty-five percent of my budget is legacy costs that happened over the last 40 years.”

The state employee collective bargaining unit leaders have indicated they’ve done their part, since a consultant to the state Office of Policy & Management, the governor’s budget arm, has reported that the 2017 agreement would save taxpayers $24 billion between 2017 and 2037.

Fazio insisted that further steps need to be taken.

“The voters have the right to be sovereign,” he remarked. “They have the right to make decisions democratically. Collective bargaining does not supersede democracy in this state.”

“At the end of the day, a financially-strapped state that is in dire fiscal straits has the right to make decisions on the margins for itself to ensure its economic solvency,” Fazio added.

Greenwich hedge fund manager David Stemerman, who sought the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2018, called for the state to exercise the 11th amendment of the U.S. Constitution to keep itself solvent by protecting itself against accumulated debt.

Is that they way to go if the state can’t pay for its obligations?

Fazio said, “I think it might be, but it actually might not be necessary because the [U.S.] Supreme Court has upheld several times the ability of states to make alterations to state pension promises on the margins – not dramatic ones but ones that are necessary to remain solvent and provide basic services.”

He said that more than 40 states since the 2008 Great Recession have sought to make those alterations. He said that there have been 25 challenges and 21 times the Supreme Court has upheld the decisions made by the states.

“Courts have upheld marginal challenges to existing pension promises,” Fazio explained.

Hartford Courant political columnist Kevin Rennie wrote last December that there were three state police sergeants who together would make more than $1.1 million in salary and benefits during 2020. He stated that “is terrible management, dangerous policy practice, and ruinous to the taxpayers”

Said Fazio, “It is absolutely a fair topic. There is no one in the private sector that has the ability to double their hours in the last three years before retirement.”

“The spiking of compensation right before retirement, which boosts retirement benefits, is not fair,” he added. “We want to be fair to our state employees. But it has gone too much in their direction.”

Regarding the $46.3 billion two-year state budget that took effect on July 1, Fazio said he is pleased that it did not increase taxes, but spending should not have increased by three percent. He added that he opposed the separate increase in the highway mileage tax. He said he opposed the budget implementer legislation, which state Rep. Stephen Harding (R-107) of Brookfield compared in an interview with Patch.com in June to congressional earmarks.

Fazio said he agrees with Sacred Heart Government Department Chairman Gary Rose, who told Patch.com in 2019 that the reduction of individual taxes would boost Connecticut’s economy.

Fazio has proposed a simplification of the state tax code, a reduction of spending and an “income tax cut that would be progressive in nature.”

Fazio, who works in the renewable energy industry, says that sector can address Connecticut’s high electricity rates, “which are the highest in the continental U.S.”

“It’s a direct result of mandates and laws passed by the state Legislature,” he explained. ”There is probably in excess of a dozen of them.”

“Eversource is a monopoly power that needs to be limited,” Fazio said of Connecticut’s electricity provider.

“I don’t see any reason for Eversource to be integrating vertically into power generation,” he said. “We don’t want the same people who are generating the electricity to be distributing it and buying it.”

Rennie, the Hartford Courant political columnist, wrote last year that Connecticut governors have discussed lowering electricity costs for nearly 50 years.

Fazio said that he is “bullish” about the future of renewable energy in Connecticut because “technology is developing positively, reducing the cost of generating electricity from solar and wind sources, as well as improving battery technology, and electric vehicles. We also have a lot of smart people in our state who are very excited about renewable energy and eager to help make it work.” He said Greenwich First Selectman Fred Camillo’s Energy Efficiency Committee, which Fazio serves on, is an example.

Fazio said municipalities can save money by switching to LED lightbulbs, adding cost-effective solar to workable roofs and on-shore wind energy. However he said the New London wind project that Lamont signed in 2019 is ineffective since the per kilowatt costs are about three times higher than the current electricity rates.

What did he learn at Northwestern University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Economics, that has helped him in his career in government?

Fazio said he benefitted from studying under Joel Mokyr, whose forte is economic history.

Fazio said Mokyr deserves a Nobel Prize for his studies that indicate that economic growth is based more on cultural and intellectual factors than physical and material components.

He said as a member of debate societies he “learned a lot from my peers, which made me a better thinker.”

Fazio grew up in Greenwich. Is the town just hedge funds and 12-bedroom mansions?

“Greenwich is a very diverse town,” he said. “The west side is very diverse. There is a large Hispanic community. I went to Title I schools. Greenwich is much different than its stereotype.”

Wall Street Journal columnist Joseph C. Sternberg, -who was born in 1982, near the beginning of the Millennial age bracket – wrote in his 2019 book, “The Theft of a Decade,” (Public Affairs, 288 pages) that the people of his generation “consistently tell pollsters that we’re less likely to affiliate with a particular party than previous generations were.”

Remarked Fazio, “There is a shift toward unaffiliated. I think that is the reflection of the major parties on a national level. They both have carried themselves poorly in my lifetime. It has become more divisive. It feels like more of a game.”

The Greenwich Time has reported that CT Mirror Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Pazniokas told the Retired Men’s Association in Greenwich shortly before the 2018 election that Connecticut was undergoing a “political identity crisis.”

The 36th state Senate District is a prime example. The Greenwich Time reported earlier this year that Democrats now outnumber Republicans for the first time in generations.

Fazio said the town has gone from being “deep red, to purple” to where the Democrats have an edge in voters.

He lost to Kasser last November by 1,451 votes out of more than 56,000 that were cast. The result was not known until the absentee ballots had been counted, and neither candidate declared victory or defeat until about 36 hours after the polls closed.

Fazio lost the Stamford section of the district by 2,145 votes.

Fazio, who formerly lived in Stamford said, “We made an enormous effort in 2020 since we had lot of Stamford residents on my campaign team.” He said that he is confident he can do better in the special election.

The Greenwich Time has reported that there will be three forums between the candidates – the first of which will be held on August 3 at the Greenwich Town Hall. Voters can attend in person or through a Zoom link.

Gevanter has done public events or canvassing with Lamont, U.S. Rep. Jim Himes (D-4) of Greenwich, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Greenwich) and Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz (D-Middletown). Fazio has done canvassing with 2018 GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski of Madison and former state House Republican leader Themis Klarides of Madison, and taken a tour of businesses along Greenwich Avenue with Camillo.

“I like to meet people in person,” Fazio said. “I think it is easier for a voter to trust a candidate if they have met them in person.”