Professor says it's unclear how Lamont will solve pension crisis

By Scott Benjamin

FAIRFIELD – The most widely quoted Political Science professor in Connecticut says there wasn’t enough discussion during the recent gubernatorial campaign on how to resolve a seriously underfunded pension system for state employees.

Gary Rose, the chairman of the Department of Government at Sacred Heart University (SHU), said that Gov.-elect Ned Lamont (D-Greenwich) “was talking about how he was going to bring everyone around the table to address the issue. At this point I’m not sure what Ned Lamont’s plan is on this.”

Ken Dixon - the Politics Editor at the Connecticut Hearst Media Group and another of the panelists at the Wednesday, November 14, forum at SHU – noted that organized labor, including the public employee collective bargaining units endorsed Lamont, and his goal has been to “get them together” at the bargaining table to discuss further concessions.
The state employee collective bargaining units signed a 20-year agreement last year, after Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman (D-Tolland) broke an 18-18 tie in the state Senate. A consultant for the state Office of Policy & Management, the governor’s budget-making arm, reported that the package would save the state $24 billion between 2017 and 2037.

Additionally, Larry Dorman, the public affairs coordinator for the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 4 has emphasized that state workers have agreed to “six hard wage freezes” over the recent year.

However critics have said the package is flawed since the state cannot lay off any employees until July 1, 2021 under its provisions and the fringe benefits have been extended from 2022 to 2027.

Sources ranging from Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton to Brookfield First Selectman Steve Dunn to former state Sen. Jamie McLaughlin of Darien have said the most pressing issue facing Connecticut is resolving a pension system that is only 29 percent funded, according to the March 1 report from the state Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Competitiveness.

Dixon said departing Gov. Dannel Malloy (D-Stamford) has “massively changed” benefits for future generations of state employees.

Rose, who has is quoted frequently in the Connecticut media and has written books on recent state campaigns and the Fourth Congressional District, and Dixon were joined at the post-gubernatorial election forum by Ebong Udoma, the senior reporter for WSHU Public Radio, and Michael Vigeant, the CEO of Great Blue Research, which conducted polls on the recent election in conjunction with SHU and the Hearst Connecticut Media Group.

Lesley DeNardis - the director of the Institute for Public Policy at SHU, which sponsored the event, was the moderator

Lamont, who formerly operated a digital television service for colleges, was elected by about 44,500 voters over Republican Bob Stefanowski (R-Madison), a former executive with General Electric and UBS. Oz Griebel of Hartford, the former head of the MetroHartford Alliance, placed a distant third.

“I don’t think Bob Stefanowski had much of an approach for a solution to the [underfunded pensions],” said Rose.

Dixon said the GOP challenger at one point indicated he would try to alter the current collective bargaining provisions by, if needed, taking a case to the “Supreme Court.”

He said it appeared Stefanowski was making an “implicit threat” to “bust” the unions and have them accept “cents on the dollar” in their pension agreements.

Lamont told Brookfield Patch in July that he would meet with the state employee collective bargaining units after taking office and criticized some of the candidates seeking the Republican gubernatorial nomination for threatening to take the unions to court.

Boughton, who placed second in the GOP gubernatorial primary to Stefanowski, told Brookfield Patch in October that he doubts that the collective bargaining unit will return to the negotiating table to discuss further concessions.