Klarides declares residents have a 'lack of trust' in government

By Scott Benjamin

State House Republican Leader Themis Klarides says the reason that Connecticut’s economy is stuck in the mud is its 3.5 million residents have a “lack of trust” in state officials.

Consider:

- Gov. Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) said in February that commercial truck-only tolls wouldn’t generate enough money for transportation improvements that would ease Connecticut’ traffic congestion. However, in November he unveiled a plan to have just commercial truck tolls.

- Brookfield Democratic First Selectman Steve Dunn has told Patch.com that the state hasn’t kept its pledge to put the money from the lottery into education, as it promised when the program began in 1972, and he has he opposes tolls, in part, because he doesn’t think they will be placed in “a lock box.”

- Klarides (R-0114) of Derby said her constituents tell her if you put up toll gantries they’ll eventually be used for all vehicles.

- In an earlier plan, Lamont said he would remove the gantries for tolls encompassing all vehicles within 10 years. “When has [the state] ever gotten rid of a revenue stream,” Klarides told CTNewsJunkie this fall.

- She said Lamont and Democratic legislative leaders have taken a dangerous step by promoting commercial truck tolls since a federal court lawsuit in neighboring Rhode Island could render the practice unconstitutional.

- Lamont has altered his tolls plans so often that state Rep. Bob Godfrey (D-110) of Danbury, who was initially elected in 1988, has said, “My colleagues are uncomfortable because every time you turn around it’s a different proposal.” He said in a December interview that he doesn’t think Lamont has the votes to get his most recent tolls package approved in either chamber.

- Said Klarides, “They just want revenue. They don’t have a plan.”

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Consider:

- Keith Phaneuf, the budget reporter for CT Mirror said at a Wilton League of Women Voters last April that 85 percent of the pension and health care costs in the state budget are due to money that forfeited over seven decades. He said from 1939 to 2010 the state’s pension obligations to the employees in the collective bargaining units and to the teachers’ pension fund.

- The state Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Competitiveness reported in March 2018 that the pensions for the state employees were only 29 percent funded. CT Mirror has reported that Connecticut.

The residents of the state apparently have a lot of offer. Wall Street 24/7 reported this fall that Connecticut ranked fifth – after, in order, Massachusetts, Colorado, New Jersey and Hawaii – among the best states to live in. The online news web site explained that Connecticut has higher median income, a higher life expectancy rate and more than 39 percent of the adults have at least a bachelor's degree compared with about 32 percent nationally.

Klarides said that the principal problems are “the people in charge” – the Democratic majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly.

After Democrats held a meager 79-72 majority in the House during the last term, they now boast a 91-60 majority. The Senate was even-Stephen at 18 members from both major parties during the last term, but the Democrats now have a 22-14 advantage.

Klarides said when the Democrats were forced to seek Republican votes, the two major parties formulated a “bipartisan” budget in the fall – nearly four months after the start of the fiscal year – that “was the best budget that we’ve had in my career in the Legislature,” she said. “There was a bonding cap, there was a spending cap and a volatility cap.”

“Now the Democrats are not interested in bipartisan budgets,” Klarides added. “They have gone back to their old habits. It’s the arrogance of the majority.”

Godfrey, a deputy House Speaker, said, “That was their fault, because they never offered any input. They’ve got members on the Finance and the Appropriations committees. Then they just voted ‘No,” and complained.”

Regarding the transportation infrastructure improvements, Madison businessman Bob Stefanowski, who captured the party’s 2018 gubernatorial nomination following a career as a financial executive with GE and UBS, recently told WTIC Radio in Hartford that Lamont should instruct each of his commissioners to reduce their spending by one percent for the current fiscal year, which would net more than $200 million that could be utilized for transportation improvements.

CT Mirror has reported that Lamont’s revised tolls plan in which commercial trucks would only pay tolls is expected to generate $187 million a year. The governor has said he plans to largely fund the remainder of his 10-yea, $19.4 million proposal through low-interest federal loans.

“I agree with the concept,” Klarides said of Stefanowski’s plan to find savings for transportation improvements instead of installing tolls.

However, she noted that the state has regularly had budget deficits over the last decade, which have required intense mitigation efforts, including cutting expenses. There were major tax increases in 2011 and 2015.

Former Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Essex) faced a deficit estimated at between $3.2 billion and $3.7 billion when he took office in 2011. Lamont had to overcome a $3.7 billion shortfall when he was inaugurated in 2019.

CT Mirror recently report that, “Analysts say” through the budget that ends in 2021, the state finances, unless adjusted would run $2.4 billion in the red in 2022 and 2023 combined, about two-third of the gap that Lamont inherited.

CTNews Junkie has reported that Melissa McCaw, the secretary of the Office of Policy & Management, the governor’s budget arm, projects a $24 million state budget deficit for the fiscal year that ends on June 30.

On a related topic, CT Hearst business columnist Dan Haar has reported that over eight years, Malloy trimmed the state full-time work force by 13.1 percent.

Has Lamont continued to reduce the state work force?

Klarides said she did not have figures on what, if anything, that Lamont has done to reduce the roster of workers.

“We should be cutting across the board,” she said in a phone interview. “Some should be reduced by less than one percent and some should be reduced more than one percent.”

Klarides said there should be a “hard hiring freeze” in every department except Public Safety, Corrections and Public Works.

On a separate topic, Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi, the president of the Connecticut Council of Small Towns, has told CT Mirror that he believes that although the General Assembly has thwarted efforts by Malloy and Lamont to have the municipalities pay part of the costs for the pensions of the public teachers in their school districts, the issue will continue to resurface.

News reports indicate that those costs, which the state has totally borne since 1939, are about to explode with a raft of retirements and the municipalities will have to pay some of the costs.

“I would hope not,” Klarides said.

“Most municipal budgets are better developed and more secure than the state budget,” she remarked. “They should not have to take on those costs, nor can they afford those costs.”

On another issue, Klarides said she is supportive of the CT Realtors proposal to abolish gift and estate taxes.

“It’s forcing people of means to file in another state,” she said.

“We get about a 30 percent return from a small population,” added Klarides to the wealthy residents, many of whom live in the Fairfield County Gold Coast.

CT Realtors President Dan Keune, who is based in Ellington, recently told Patch.com that the issue gained traction during the 2019 regular session and he was hopeful it might get abolished.

Klarides said she also supports the CT Realtors goal of achieving a more fair and balanced conveyance tax after Lamont signed legislation in June that that expanded the seller’s conveyance tax on properties over $800,000.

On another issue: Did former Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Essex) and the General Assembly make the best decision in abolishing the Board of Trustees system for the State University system and the Community Colleges in 2011 and merging them into the 17-unit Board of Regents with the Charter Oak College?

“I think there are pros and cons to having a Board of Regents,” said Klarides. “But in the end I do think that we benefit in having all of the state colleges and universities under one organization, because you can have efficiencies,” she said.

She said it appears that much of the ongoing commotion has resulted from conflicts between the faculty and the proposals made by the Board of Regents.

Former Board of Regents President Gregory Gray, who sought the ambitious Transform 2020 program about five years ago, which would have boosted online learning and sought to make it easier for students from the two-year campuses to transfer without losing credit to the four-year schools in the Board of Regents.

Gray left his position in 2015 following a series of no confidence votes by some of the faculty collective bargaining units.

His successor, Mark Ojakian, also has faced no confidence votes, as have the members of the Board of Regents, over the Students First program that would move some of the functions now performed by the community college presidents into the Board of Regents central office. Ojakian said the system cannot be sustained over the long term financially under the current conditions. His initial plan was rebuffed by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges for immediate implementation, but the Regents have continued discussions with the New England board about eventually making that consolidation.

Klarides said she has been “shocked” to see the number of administrators that are needed to operate the 12 community colleges, adding that she supports Students First, since it would lower those administrative costs while still providing students with the resources for a quality education.

On a separate topic, Republicans were critical of Malloy’s 2011 decision to pay $291 million to bring the Jackson Laboratory For Genomic Medicine (Jackson Labs) from Maine to the campus of the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington. They said the state government should not be picking winners and losers.

However, CT Mirror reported in 2018 that within four years, Jackson Labs had already exceeded its 10-year employment goals.

Klardies said Jackson Labs has been an asset for the Connecticut.

“I don’t know about the impact in dollars and cents or if ‘X’ number of jobs have been created,” she said. “I do know that they do well-accepted work and the work they do is important.”

On the political front, some observers were astonished by Klarides’ remarks this fall at the annual Republican state party dinner in Stamford named after former U.S. Sen. Prescott Bush (R-Greenwich) – who had a son and a grandson serve in the Oval Office – in which she called Lamont “incompetent” and he deserved a grade of “F-minus.”

Lamont spoke with reporters the following day, noting that he had been committed to improving the tone of discourse at the State Capitol.

“Governor Malloy was difficult to interact with and had a difficult personality,” Klarides told Patch.com in December. “He was not collaborative. But he had a vision and he was very well prepared.”

“Governor Lamont is a nice guy, but he has had difficulty dealing with the politics and the governing,” Klarides added. “I think he would be the first to admit that it has been a challenge for him moving from the private sector to the public sector. But I do think that he wants to do better.”

How has Klarides benefitted in her career in government from obtaining a degree in Political Science from Trinity College – the Little Ivy League campus in Hartford that also produced the late Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times, who won a Pulitzer Prize and was named national sportswriter of the year a record 14 times while producing a column that was as much Billy Crystal as it was Lesley Stahl?

“The most important thing was getting the internship my junior year at the State Capitol,” she said. “Overall Trinity provides a good education, but its one thing to learn about the three branches of government in the classroom. It is much more valuable to get the practical experience of being an intern. I became much more interested in government as a result of that.”

She added that there probably should be more Cooperative Learning opportunities at the 17 schools in the Board of Regents system.

Gary Rose, the noted Government Department chairman at Sacred Heart University who has been a panelist on numerous candidates debates over the recent years, told Patch.com in August that Stefanowski has become the face of the Republican Party in Connecticut, as he has made frequent media appearances, spoken at fund-raisers for GOP municipal candidates and attended No Tolls rallies.

Rose has said he believes that former hedge fund manager David Stemerman of Greenwich, who placed third in the 2018 GOP gubernatorial primary and was endorsed by the Hartford Courant, will take on a similar role since he has been doing media appearances and writing columns since then.

However, some state House Republicans think that Klarides would be a terrific candidate for the party’s 2022 gubernatorial nomination.

If she takes the plunge and gets elected, she would become the first Trinity graduate to hold that job since the late Thomas Meskill of New Britain, who served from 1971 to 1975.

Yet, it is not clear that if she became Connecticut’s 90^th governor that she also would be considered the hottest Trinity graduate that side (or even this side) of Jim Murray, because not only have there been multiple book volumes published of Murray’s columns, but he was one of the few sportswriters who had ever ridden on Air Force One.

Besides, in the 1970s he sold his home in Malibu to Bob Dylan.