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HARTFORD—On Wednesday, House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora and State Rep. Joe Polletta, who serves as Ranking Member on the Finance, Revenue & Bonding Committee, released the following statement in response to the arrest of a University of Connecticut faculty member accused of using school and grant funding for personal purposes:

“Accountability shouldn’t be optional. When a UConn faculty member misused funds, the university recognized this wasn’t a small ball issue and took decisive action to engage law enforcement. Meanwhile, the CSCU system Board of Regents took a far weaker approach when its own chancellor misused taxpayer money, failing to even attempt to hold him to the same standard. Connecticut residents deserve consistency—if financial misconduct warrants criminal charges at UConn, a lot of students, parents and taxpayers will understandably ask why the response from the Board of Regents and Governor has been so lax?”

State Rep. Joe Polletta, House Ranking Member on the Finance, Revenue & Bonding Committee added,“ The nation is captivated by a long overdue reckoning on misuse of federal monies, including grants to public universities, and today a director in the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department at the University of Connecticut has been arrested for stealing money from the university to fund personal trips to Disney World and abroad. I am glad that UConn has taken decisive action to arrest this professor and director and commend their commitment to ethics among their ranks. But nothing validates a conversation on strict scrutiny of federal spending like a public university professor with sticky fingers, lining their own pockets for leisure at the expense of the taxpayer.”