Bolinsky Op-Ed: Cancelling Raises Good First Step, But More Bold Action Needed

With a Monday announcement that he was cancelling scheduled raises to almost 2,000 state managers, Governor Malloy took decisive action to begin the process of shared sacrifice in an attempt to demonstrate the kind of act needed to put our state in a position to control its fiscal destiny. I applaud the Governor’s bold action but, sadly, this solitary act is not enough; it only addresses the tip of our budgetary iceberg.

The entire General Assembly must take this gesture as motivation to act boldly if we are to truly tackle Connecticut’s “new fiscal realities” head on.

I have a suggestion for the General Assembly’s next step — it is time we freeze wages throughout the State of Connecticut’s public employee system, just as Governor Malloy has done with his management employees.

There. I said it. This proposal represents real shared sacrifice and will certainly be very unpopular among many and wildly welcomed by others. Let me be clear though — I do not support labor force layoffs. I also believe we must treat our obligations to retirees and those nearing retirement as “promises” not to be broken.

Freezing wages will impact the middle-class families of many state employees, but a wage freeze will be far less painful than the layoffs that will inevitably result if we blindly keep doing what’s always been done. Things are different now, and foregoing a raise is far better than being unemployed or cutting the state budget in areas that provide essential human services to the disabled, elderly, veterans and mentally ill.

Another critical step for the legislature is to now pressure the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate to call for a vote on a new UConn employee contract on the floor of both Houses.

Last week, in the Appropriations Committee, Democrats narrowly passed a new labor agreement for 1,900 nonteaching UConn employees that was negotiated to provide raises over five years that will total $94 million for this one, relatively small bargaining unit. Then, on the heels of this bad deal nearly being defeated in committee, our state’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis (OFA) released updated deficit numbers indicating that, despite the legislatures “mitigation” of our current-year deficit in December, we are now likely to fall $266 million short in FY16 and $900 million short in FY17. These whopping deficits are due to state revenue sources, namely tax receipts, performing worse than expected.   Worse yet, OFA predicts we are on pace to have the next budget biennium produce a $2.2 billion deficit in FY18, followed by a $2.4 billion deficit in FY19. You read that correctly…$4.6 billion in the next budget cycle in addition to this cycle’s deficit.

This brings me back to the bold action referred to above. Our very financial survival lies in the balance and, as labor is the largest collective line item in Connecticut’s budget, I think it’s critical to abandon business as usual and manage our state’s fiscal crisis with our state employee partners voluntarily accepting “no increase contracts” as a demonstration of their commitment to help right Connecticut’s financial ship. When our state’s finances are no longer in serious deficit, raises resume. If this sounds like private-sector budget policy, well, it is. We can’t spend what we do not have. That’s taught in Economics 101 at UConn.

I have a feeling that this scenario is pretty unlikely to hatch organically, despite its necessity.

Therefore the legislature and you, the taxpayers, need to force this bad precedent of a contract to a roll-call vote on the floor of the House and Senate. If we do not, it will be automatically ratified on March 9th. Worse yet, this collective bargaining agreement will set the bar for 15 additional state employee contracts that will be up for negotiation in the near future, covering tens of thousands of state employees, at a time when we have no idea where the money will come from. In today’s fiscal troubled times, the majority party is enabling our state’s labor costs to explode way beyond our means.

If you’d like to help us force a vote, please contact your representatives and the Speaker of the House, the Senate President, and the House and Senate Majority Leaders, and insist that session be called on or before March 9, 2016, to vote on this hurtful agreement. This action allows our democratic process to work. If we vote and it passes on the floors of the House and Senate, we simply go on with business as usual, as unsustainable as I think that is. If it fails, we get the opportunity to try something new, regain our financial footing and work toward a better tomorrow.

Each member of the General Assembly should be held responsible for their vote on this contract. Taxpayers and the state cannot afford this deal and the financial catastrophe it will precipitate.