Arielle Levin Becker
November 3, 2011

The board developing the state’s health insurance exchange–a key piece of federal health reform–is already at work. But consumer advocates unhappy with the composition of the board are still trying to change its make-up, and Democratic lawmakers are open to the idea.

Some advocates have been urging lawmakers to amend law that governs the exchange to add board members who represent consumers. Others want three board members who have held leadership positions at insurance companies to be replaced, saying their appointments violate the state law that established the exchange, which prohibits board members from being affiliated with insurers or other health care industry groups.

“The biggest danger is that the board is set up to protect insurance companies instead of consumers, or to enrich insurance companies instead of protecting consumers,” said Tom Swan, executive director of Connecticut Citizen Action Group. He and other critics of the board are exploring administrative and legal options if the governor and legislators don’t replace the board members with insurance backgrounds.

But some involved in implementing health reform say it’s important to have people who understand insurance involved in developing the exchange, which will serve as a marketplace for individuals and small businesses to buy health care coverage beginning in 2014.

Lawmakers did not address the board’s composition during a special legislative session last week, but Democratic legislative leaders and Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, who chairs the exchange board, have expressed openness to considering changes during next year’s regular session. None said they had concerns about the board.

The board has eight members appointed by the governor or legislative leaders, and six members representing state agencies or government. The three members that have drawn the most scrutiny are Mickey Herbert, who retired last year as CEO of the insurer ConnectiCare;  Robert Scalettar, a physician who has held top medical positions at Aetna Better Health, AmeriChoice by UnitedHealthcare, and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield; and Mary Fox, a former senior vice president for Aetna Product Group.

The other appointees include Wyman, small business founder Michael Devine, health economist Grant Ritter, former Senate Democrats staffer Cecilia Woods, and Robert Tessier, who leads a coalition of health plans for unionized workers.

Concerns from the left

Many states have been slow to embrace or even outright challenged federal health reform. In Connecticut, though, the most visible fight has taken place on the other side, with critics worried that the state won’t go far enough. Many of those seeking to change the exchange board’s composition were involved in the push for SustiNet, a proposed state-run insurance plan that failed to become law after Gov. Dannel P. Malloy expressed reservations. Malloy, a Democrat, has embraced federal health reform, but many advocates have criticized him for not supporting SustiNet and say he has been too deferential to the insurance industry.

At the most recent exchange board meeting, some critics held a silent protest, with bandages over their mouths.

The exchange board “is absolutely as far opposite as you could probably get to what the federal vision of that entity was supposed to be, which was very heavily weighed on the consumer side. And what we have is we have no consumers,” said Kevin Galvin, a small business owner who has been active in pushing for state-level health reforms and serves as chairman of Small Business for a Healthy Connecticut.

He noted that while state Healthcare Advocate Victoria Veltri is on the board, she is a non-voting member.

Ellen Andrews, executive director of the Connecticut Health Policy Project, said she was concerned that the board members did not appear to have experience working with low-income residents.

“They don’t know what they don’t know,” she said. “I’m more scared in terms of them being able to explain to people who are going to be forced to buy [insurance] why they should buy it, and why they should trust this group of people who, frankly, I don’t trust.”

Juan A. Figueroa, president of the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, which led the push for SustiNet, wants the exchange board dismantled and restarted. “I think there’s a real question as to the legitimacy of this board and I would just start all over again,” he said.

State Comptroller Kevin Lembo, the state’s previous healthcare advocate, isn’t seeking to have anyone removed from the board, but said it seems like a mistake that more consumers were not named on the board, and that it could be fixed efficiently through legislation or an executive order.

“I don’t assign bad motivation to anyone, I just think we are where we are, the question is, are we willing to fix it?” he said. “If it’s an easy thing to fix, then we should fix it and move on.”

Who is a consumer advocate?

Since the exchange was created through legislation, Wyman said she has suggested that advocates seek legislative changes if they want to expand the board by one or two people.

Senate Majority Leader Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, would support making the healthcare advocate a voting member and would consider other changes, but couldn’t commit to them yet, spokesman Lawrence Cook said.

And House Speaker Christopher G. Donovan, D-Meriden, is open to discussing adding consumer representation to the board, according to spokesman Doug Whiting.

“I think he feels that the composition of the board is representative, but clearly there are a number of folks and advocates who don’t believe that,” Whiting said. “He’s willing to listen to that argument, and if the argument’s persuasive, at least to consider making changes.”

But House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero, Jr., R-Norwalk, said he would be loath to change the make-up of the board, “unless they’ve got a pretty damn good reason.” Cafero said it’s one thing to ask an appointing authority to make a new selection if members are not knowledgeable about the subject or aren’t showing up to meetings.

“But to change the legislation as to who comprises the board, that’s another thing,” Cafero said. “They’d have to really demonstrate to me and others as to why that’s necessary. And if it comes down to just ’cause they’re not getting what they want to get, that’s life.”

Besides, Cafero noted, “Your definition of consumer-friendly might be different than mine.”

And Wyman, who said she thinks the board achieves the appropriate balance, challenged the idea that board members, herself included, won’t stand up for consumers.

“I really believe that most people on that board do believe they’re consumer advocates,” she said.

Moving fast

Herbert, too, took issue with the idea that he and other board members are not consumers. He noted that he has experience purchasing insurance for a small business–the Bridgeport Bluefish baseball team, which he owned and operated for eight seasons, and which has about a dozen full-time employees. He has also been involved in private and state efforts to figure out how to cover all Connecticut residents.

“It’s something that I’m very, very committed to, and I know quite a bit about,” Herbert said. “I don’t feel like I was chosen for any other reason but for the fact that I have a lot to offer through this process.”

Herbert said it would be “folly” to remove him, Fox and Scalettar from the board.

“We’re not conflicted currently, and I would argue that it’s imperative to have some folks on that board that have health insurance backgrounds and experience, because that’s what this is all about,” he said.

Fox and Scalettar did not respond to requests for comment, but others spoke on their behalf.

Cook called Scalettar, Looney’s appointee, “eminently qualified” to serve on the exchange board because of his expertise in health delivery systems.

“Among his other qualifications, he has practiced pediatrics at a community health center, he built and ran a student health center, and he was chief medical officer for Anthem Blue Cross-Blue Shield,” Cook said. “That is why Bob Scalettar is on the Health Insurance Exchange–because of his decades of commitment and to people who need good health care.”

Wyman, who like Fox was named to the board by Malloy, said Fox had not worked at Aetna in some time, and brings a different perspective to the board. Fox “believes that she is an advocate,” Wyman said.

Jeannette DeJesús, special advisor to the governor for health reform and vice chairwoman of the exchange board, said it’s been made clear that the administration would support action by the legislature to add board members. But she suggested that advocates might be better off focusing on other areas.

The board is moving at a fast pace to build and implement a new insurance marketplace in two years. One task, hiring a CEO to run the quasi-public agency, is moving quickly, with board members expected to select the top candidates–to be narrowed by the governor–next month.

Having one person on the board won’t be nearly as effective as making sure that a wide range of communities affected by health reform get heard in the process, DeJesús said.

Through DeJesús’ office, the state was recently accepted into a program that will give training in health equity issues to members of the exchange board and other boards involved in health reform. She said it’s important to have diverse communities represented on the board, but that to assume that the people chosen don’t have sensitivity or knowledge about those areas might not be correct.

Herbert said he’s trying to stay above the fray and largely ignore the dispute over the board composition.

“We have a lot of work to do and in a very short period of time, so it might be a little bit too strong to say we’re ignoring all the noise around us, but the reality is we’re just focusing on our job, which is trying to get this exchange up and running in really a pretty short period of time,” he said.

©Copyright 2011 The Connecticut News Project. All rights reserved.

The Associated Press
Posted Nov 02, 2011

HARTFORD, Conn. — Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Tuesday that his administration is committed to changing the relationship between managers and employees in state government and empowering workers to come up with ways to streamline and improve services.

“I did it as the mayor of Stamford, I intended to do it as governor — to have an administration that is committed to creating a model of government where the ideas of front-line workers are valued,” he said. Malloy said that will ultimately lead to ways of making state government more efficient and making state workers feel appreciated.

The Democrat said his administration is committed to “reversing two decades of leadership who felt that they got stronger by making front-line workers weaker.”

Tuesday marked the first meeting of The Joint Labor-Management Committee, a component of the labor-savings agreement reached earlier this year between Malloy and unionized workers and ratified in August.
The agreement with union members requires the committee to use front-line workers’ ideas to come up with ways to make state government more efficient and responsive. The committee is also supposed to examine ways to use in-house resources more efficiently and discourage using outside contractors when the work can be performed in-house.

Patrice Peterson, president of CSEA-SEIU Local 2001, said the committee marks an opportunity to reverse the “total top-down government structure” of the past 20 years.

Peterson said while the state employees were allies of Malloy’s during the 2010 gubernatorial election, they were adversaries during the state budget talks and negotiations over the labor deal. At one point, the governor began issuing the first of 3,100 layoff notices when it appeared the deal might not be ratified.

“But it’s done,” she said. “We need to get back to shared values that caused the state workers to work so hard to elect a new administration.”

She said that includes the belief that public workers want make a difference in the state.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Keith M. Phaneuf
November 1, 2011

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy launched the new labor-management panel charged with finding efficiencies across state government by pledging Tuesday to cooperate with workers to help them transform state services–and the costs associated with them.

And the governor’s chief negotiator, Office of Policy and Management Deputy Secretary Mark Ojakian, also told the panel–which was supposed to identify $90 million in budget savings in the current fiscal year–to focus on reshaping government over the long haul.

Though the panel is an outgrowth of the concession deal negotiated by labor and the administration last spring and ratified by union members in late August, the governor said the need for such a group extends beyond the challenge of finding budget savings.

“We’ve needed to re-stack our relationship for management reasons,” the governor said. “I want to create the most efficient and effective agencies… where workers at all levels feel appreciated.”

Malloy, a Democrat, campaigned heavily last fall on a pledge to work much more closely with labor than had his two Republican predecessors, M. Jodi Rell and John G. Rowland.

That relationship, which helped Malloy win a narrow victory over Greenwich Republican Tom Foley last November, hit a bump in the road three months later when Malloy called for $2 billion in union concessions over the 2011-12 and 2012-13 fiscal years to help close massive projected deficits.

The final package ratified in August was touted as being worth $1.6 billion over the biennium, including $700 million this fiscal year and $900 million in 2012-13.

But Republican legislators have repeatedly charged that those savings projections were misrepresented in certain ways.

For example, the agreement calls for $170 million in savings to be found in total each year from  one existing labor-management panel and two new ones: $40 million per year from the health care cost containment committee; $40 million annually from a new technology panel: and $90 million per year from the group that met Tuesday. The latter panel, which is charged with finding savings anywhere in state government, has been skeptically dubbed an “employee suggestion box” by some GOP lawmakers.

The concession deal called for the omnibus efficiency panel to meet by Sept. 1–two months before its first gathering Tuesday. Similarly, the technology group, which first met on Oct. 24, was supposed to gather as soon as possible after the Aug. 25 ratification vote.

And while two new panels responsible for finding $130 million in savings to keep this year’s budget in balance just began meeting–with four months of the fiscal year already expired–the governor’s budget office already developed its own blueprint earlier this fall to determine which state agencies will be cut to cover nearly all of the concession savings target.

House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero, R-Norwalk, who first coined the “employee suggestion box” label, said when this blueprint first was reported by The Connecticut Mirror on Oct. 21 that these panels were “the big hoax of this concession deal.”

How could administration budget officials assign agency-by-agency responsibility for savings from the efficiency panels that hadn’t met yet? Cafero said.

“What this really means is that employees are giving less in concessions than some people believe, and the public is being asked to make up the difference in terms of cuts to programs and services,” he said last month.

But Ojakian urged the group on Tuesday to ignore its critics and focus on its potential to dramatically reshape government over the long haul.

“This is a transformational process,” he said. “It will achieve savings in the long-term.”

Ojakian added afterward that while not all of the budget cuts assigned by the administration this year to meet the savings targets in the concession deal reflect joint labor-management proposals, some of them do stem from ideas raised by union leaders during the concession negotiations last spring.

Labor leaders were equally optimistic Tuesday about the panel’s potential to make changes over the long term.

“We have for decades, systematically… been shut out, not heard,” said Hartford attorney Daniel Livingston, chief negotiator for the unions and co-chairman of the panel along with Ojakian.

“We see this process as a tremendous opportunity,” not only to achieve savings, but to improve services, Livingston said. “We are very excited about the opportunity to do that.”

The panel adopted a series of principles that includes a pledge to work closely with rank-and-file workers and to have both labor and management representatives on all working groups and subcommittees.

Patrice Peterson, president of Local 2001 of the CSEA/SEIU, predicted the unions up-and-down relationship with Malloy would not be an obstacle to the group achieving good results.

“We were allies on that election but we were adversaries in the (concession) bargaining process,” Peterson said, noting that the latter effort was difficult at times. “It is done. … We want (workers’) ideas to make a difference in what government does.”

©Copyright 2011 The Connecticut News Project. All rights reserved.

ECONOMY & BUSINESS BEAT
MONDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2011
By John Gramlich, Stateline Staff Writer

In a special legislative session that ended last week, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy achieved what President Obama so far has not: winning bipartisan approval of an ambitious jobs plan.

Malloy, a Democrat, won unanimous support from his own party — and nearly unanimous support from Republicans — as the legislature agreed to borrow $626 million over two years in a sweeping effort to create private-sector jobs. The legislation, which will cost $1.1 billion after interest payments are included, drew just a single opposing vote in each legislative chamber.

“How often do you see this happening in Washington?” Malloy said in a statement on Thursday (October 28) when he signed the bill, which reached his desk after weeks of discussions between state officials and private-sector executives and employees. “Putting people back to work and making Connecticut more business-friendly aren’t goals owned by any one party.”

The legislation found support on both sides of the aisle because of the broad scope of policy proposals it includes. Among a host of other changes, the new law loosens business regulations, expands job-training efforts, creates new tax credits for small businesses, and provides money for public-works projects.

More than half of the plan, or $340 million, is devoted to expanding Malloy’s “First Five” program, which initially was aimed at providing tax incentives to the first five companies to create 200 jobs in Connecticut, but now will be expanded to allow up to 10 companies to participate, The Connecticut Post reports.

Connecticut lawmakers also may have acted in unison because of the state’s poor track record on job creation. The state has seen zero net job growth over two decades, The Post notes.

“Economy & Business Beat” provides a quick analysis of recent economic development news in state government. Click here to find Stateline’s daily roundup of economy and business news.

— Contact John Gramlich at jgramlich@stateline.org

(c) 2009. The Pew Charitable Trusts. All rights reserved.

Jon Lender

Government Watch
October 30, 2011

The first ideas by top state officials on how to shovel out from under Connecticut’s $250 million annual overtime-pay avalanche include proposals to book overtime shifts only 24 hours in advance, instead of two weeks — and to formally evaluate government managers on how well they cut down on subordinates’ overtime pay.

A month ago Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget director, Ben Barnes, ordered six agencies that pay the most overtime to submit plans on how to cut 10 percent from their OT totals between now and June 30, 2012 — and thus help achieve a $25 million statewide reduction.

The plans, turned in by Oct. 21, were obtained by The Courant last week via a Freedom of Information Act request.

They can hardly be considered a detailed road map to a 10 percent across-the-board reduction. Some officials even wrote about facing imperatives that could increase their overtime expenditures for a time. Others offered a solution for eliminating overtime that Barnes’ office that might not completely accept: hire more full-timers to reduce the need to fill shifts via OT. After looking at them for the first time last week, Barnes didn’t sound quite as confident about meeting his first-year reduction goal.

However, a few of the plans showed some new ideas, whether or not they’ll pan out. Here, for example, are a couple of excerpts from the Department of Children and Families’ plan, which drew the most praise from Barnes last week:

• •Managers will only “book each day’s overtime shifts 24 hours in advance” at DCF’s round-the-clock operations, such as the Riverview psychological hospital for youths and the Connecticut Juvenile Training School, both in Middletown, according to the plan prepared by DCF’s fiscal services director, Cindy Butterfield. Previously, managers would schedule employees to fill empty shifts by use of “rotation lists,” but “this practice is now changing … because it is believed that there are many variables that can occur in a two-week period that might make a shift [of] overtime unnecessary when the day actually arrives on the schedule.”
• •In DCF’s area office system, “all overtime assignments will be filled by the appropriate job class,” and “employees at a higher job class will not be filling in for lower-paid employees,” according to Butterfield’s report. “Individual managers [will be] accountable for the use of overtime within their unit,” and, statewide, “managers have been notified that overtime usage will be considered to be a general performance indicator.”

DCF’s annual overtime bill of $17.7 million ranked sixth among state agencies in the 12-month budget year that ended June 30. That was nearly $48 million behind the highest OT total of $65.3 million spent by the Department of Correction. The four departments in between were: Mental Health and Addiction Services, $44.3 million; Developmental Services, $39.7 million; Emergency Services and Public Protection, $25.2 million; and Transportation, $23 million.

“What I liked about DCF’s plan is that they’re trying to be creative within the rules and constraints that they have,” Barnes said in an interview Friday. He praised the “attention to detail” in the report, including “accountability provisions” that say “people will be evaluated based on their performance relative to these overtime goals, in addition to all the other things they get evaluated for.”

Asked if the plans give him confidence that the Malloy administration can reach its goal of cutting overtime by $25 million between now and the end of this fiscal year, June 30, 2012, Barnes hedged and said, “I don’t know whether we get to our 10 percent,” considering that the OT-cutting effort is gearing up more than three months after the July 1 start of the budget year, but, if not, he said he hopes the goal can be reached over a full year.

Some of the agencies’ proposals for overtime reduction depend heavily on hiring new employees to fill numerous vacancies that have lasted since the Rell administration’s retirement incentive program and hiring freeze.

The mental health department, for example, said in its overtime-reduction plan that it has already “received approval … to hire 95 critical positions, of which 40 were specifically targeted to reduce overtime” at its huge Connecticut Valley Hospital complex in Middletown, and is now “in the recruitment process to hire these staff.”

“CVH last fiscal year accounted for 95% of the Department’s mandatory overtime and 74% of the Department’s total overtime expenditures,” said the plan submitted by agency Commissioner Pat Rehmer. “It is estimated that [an] additional 56 positions will reduce overtime by an additional $1.2 million … [and] the complete DMHAS Overtime Reduction Plan if approved will reduce overtime expenditures by $3.8 million” for the 12-month period ending next June 30.

Balancing Act

Barnes said his office plans to be extremely careful about filling full-time jobs to cut down on overtime pay, because it’s no good to eliminate overtime by filling shifts with newly hired employees whose straight-time pay offsets the OT reduction. “We’re only going to do it in certain circumstances,” such as cases in which there’s “mandatory overtime, at double-time rates, with brutal hours just to keep shifts covered.”

“There may be a tolerable level of overtime that makes fiscal sense,” he said, adding that it will take “sophisticated” analysis and the balancing of various factors — such as tolerating only a certain amount of overtime, and making sure that it is shared more equally among employees instead of spiking a worker’s salary in the three years on which the employee’s pension will be based.

Now that the reports from the major overtime-payers have been submitted, Barnes’ office will evaluate them and work with the agencies to develop final plans — which will go into effect in coming weeks. Once in effect, agencies will have to report monthly on their progress, Barnes said.

Common threads run through all the newly submitted plans. They generally involve closer scrutiny and tighter documentation of the need for overtime. They are following Barnes’ order to keep tabs on which employees are making OT amounting to half-again or more of their regular pay.

“Each manager will be held accountable for their monthly overtime expenditures in excess of the budgeted amounts for their specific assignments,” said the plan submitted by the emergency services department, which includes the state police.

The police agency had reduced its overtime in the first three months of the current fiscal year by $742,513, the report said, but “the amount of overtime for the month of September will be significantly higher as the result of the fifty six … Connecticut State Police Trooper layoffs.” Now that Malloy has rescinded the trooper layoffs, the report added, overtime will be reduced by $107,000 during each two-week pay period.

Prison System

At the correction department, an administrator said in an email last week that officials in the statewide prison system have recently been concentrating on “the need for improvement in the area of absenteeism” and “patterns of possible misuse of sick time,” the department’s report said. Employees sometimes are paid overtime to fill the shifts of absent workers.

Correction Commissioner Leo Arnone said in his Oct. 17 report to Barnes that distribution of overtime among correctional officers is subject to restrictions including “protocols” and “contractual language” in labor agreements. He also said that overtime has been driven up by hundreds of vacancies.

“Since January 2010 our records indicate more than 900 positions have been lost as a result of retirements, attrition and layoffs,” Arnone wrote. “In the same period we have hired only 251 employees to our agency. Although the Department has worked aggressively to lower overtime expenditures during the past two fiscal years, the historical decisions not to fully staff our agency have resulted in very significant overtime expenditures.”

“The combination of filling essential vacant posts and the implementation of … initiatives to reduce our prison population” — such as a new “Risk Reduction Earned Credit” initiative giving inmates earlier releases if they go through self-improvement programs in prison — “will provide for a significant reduction in overtime.”

DOT

The transportation department’s plan said that although DOT “will continue to monitor and manage the overtime associated with snow and ice, it should be noted that these expenditures are contingent on several elements which are outside of the Department’s control, such as the number of storms, intensity of the storm, duration, day of the week the storm falls on and the Department’s resources.”

The DOT report also said it needs to make sure that roads are clear and safe at other times — mentioning “two tropical storms, which caused moderate to severe flooding” in the past year. “Based on our experience, the frequency of these events were abnormal compared to prior years, which accounts for the unusually high overtime.”

However, the report said that DOT has implemented a series of overtime reports that “are enabling each Bureau Chief to perform a comprehensive review.” The department “has reduction targets for appropriated non-snow overtime,” the report said, and it plans to look at areas “whereby right sizing” — hiring employees, that is — “will produce overtime savings.”

Jon Lender is a reporter on The Courant’s investigative desk, with a focus on government and politics. Contact him at jlender@courant.com, 860-241-6524, or c/o The Hartford Courant, 285 Broad St., Hartford, CT 06115 and find him on Twitter@jonlender.

Copyright © 2011, The Hartford Courant

By DAN HAAR, dhaar@courant.com
The Hartford Courant
October 28, 2011

Two hundred blood collection workers at the Connecticut Blood Services region of the American Red Cross will go on strike Thursday after more than two years without a contract, the union representing the workers said Friday.

The strike by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3145 will be open-ended, in contrast to a three-day action in June 2010, the union said. It follows a breakdown in negotiations in which the Red Cross rejected the union’s latest demands last weekend.

Blood supplies are low in the Northeast region, the Red Cross said, but officials at the nonprofit agency said they have assured hospitals that the strike will not disrupt deliveries.

The action at the main Connecticut office in Farmington and at an office in Norwalk will, however, interrupt two weeks of training on new, automated procedures for blood collection workers, scheduled to start Monday. The Red Cross said the training has been long planned and will be difficult to reschedule because it’s part of a nationwide effort.

The union’s last contract expired in April 2009, and talks have stalled amid acrimony not over pay, but rather health benefits, both sides said. The union also cited bargaining rights, issues such as scheduling and a dispute over how many licensed nurses are needed at blood drives.

“The Red Cross has left us no choice but to go on strike,” said Kip Lockhart, chief negotiator for the union. “We have worked as hard as we can to reach a just and fair agreement at the table.”

The AFSCME Local 3145 offer made last Sunday “far exceeded anything, on a host of issues, that the Red Cross has agreed to in past negotiations,” said Donna M. Morrissey, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross. “That offer has moved us further apart.”

Morrissey said the Red Cross has reached 14 labor agreements across the country since July, including two AFSCME pacts this month.

“If a work stoppage occurs, the Red Cross has a contingency plan in place to ensure that the blood needs of patients can be met,” Morrissey said. “It is disappointing that union leaders would choose to strike and disrupt blood collections at a time when blood supplies in Connecticut and nationally are low following the severe weather earlier this fall.”

The Red Cross will evaluate whether to cancel local blood drives if the strike goes forward, Morrissey said. No new negotiations were scheduled as of late Friday but both sides said they were willing to resume talks before the strike.

“We need to do this because we need to stand for what’s right for ourselves and for the donors we serve,” said Larry Dorman, AFSCME Council 4 spokesman.

In recent years, the union said, the Red Cross has reduced the number of licensed nurses in the unit — RNs and LPNs — from 30 to about eight, Dorman said, citing what he said is a significant issue in the breakdown. “Everybody will tell you how critically important it is to have licesnsed nurses at a blood drive. It’s just common sense. … Unfortunately, this employer has retreated from that standard.”

In response, Morrissey said every drive aimed at collecting more than 25 units has a trained supervisor who often is a nurse. Neither the federal government, nor the Red Cross, nor the blood-collection industry association requires a nurse present at drives, she said. “We know of no data or research study that suggests requiring a nurse at every drive,” she said.

On Aug. 28, a judge at the National Labor Relations Board found that the Red Cross engaged in unfair labor practices by changing the terms of the workers’ health insurance. The Red Cross has appealed, Morrissey said.

Copyright © 2011, The Hartford Courant

by Christine Stuart
Oct 27, 2011 11:30am

It lasted all of 45 seconds, but the “horseplay” that started with a headlock ended with the Judicial Branch terminating two union stewards working at the Hartford Juvenile Detention Center.

Jason Pelletier and John Woolard were placed on unpaid administrative leave Sept. 26 and terminated Oct. 13 after the incident which they believe had nothing to do with their termination.

“I believe I do my job pretty well,” Pelletier said earlier this week in a phone interview. “I believe I was fired to prove a point.”

AFSCME Council 4 the union that represents them filed a grievance on their behalf.

Pelletier said the horseplay is not uncommon in the workplace and it wasn’t like he and Woolard were actually fighting. He said the two are friends and after he got swept to the floor he got back up and the two continued to work the next three days together at the facility.

“We believe the Judicial Branch terminated Jason and John because they were union stewards who effectively represented our members. The discipline is excessive to say the least, and leaves us no choice but to file this complaint,” Kevin Murphy, Council 4’s director of collective bargaining and organizing, said.

Pelletier has worked as a juvenile detention officer for nearly 15 years, Woolard has been there 8 years, and neither were offered any form of progressive discipline after being place on unpaid administrative leave for the incident.

The Judicial Branch declined to comment on the firings.

Larry Dorman, spokesman for AFSCME Council 4, said Pelletier has been outspoken regarding the people he represents.

In February Pelletier was one of the union members to speak out against what the union felt was understaffing at the three juvenile detention centers in Bridgeport, Hartford, and New Haven. The one in New Haven has since closed as the Judicial Branch sought to find savings in its budget.

Pelletier said that he worked to organize the part-time employees at the facilities and often “butted heads with the administration.”

He said before he became a steward he never had any disciplinary action taken against him.

The Labor Board of Relations is expected to schedule a hearing in the matter.

© 2005–2011 CTNewsJunkie

Mark Pazniokas
and Keith M. Phaneuf
October 26, 2011

The Senate gave final passage Wednesday night to a bipartisan jobs bill crafted to provide economic incentives to manufacturers, major employers and small businesses, while scoring a political victory shared by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and legislative Democrats and Republicans.

With only one Republican dissenting, the Senate voted 34 to 1 in favor of a bill negotiated over weeks by the Democratic governor and the legislature’s Democratic majority and the GOP minority. The House passed it hours earlier, 147 to 1.

The legislation earmarks $626 million in bonding in over the next two years for an array of programs, including $340 million to expand the governor’s First Five program for major employers, $50 million for transportation infrastructure, and $10 million for small businesses in town centers. Another $75 million also will be bonded in future years.

With the costs of borrowing, the bill will cost $1.1 billion over 20 years.

“I believe it’s a billion dollars we don’t have,” said Sen. Kevin Witkos, R-Canton, the only senator to oppose the measure.

But he was the exception. His colleagues spent the evening talking about the public’s thirst for action, and they promoted the details of a legislative package that offers some incentives as the economy seems to be stalling.

“What I heard was clear and direct,” said Sen. Kevin Kelly, R-Stratford. “People want jobs, and they want them today. And they don’t want any more partisan division.”

The bill creates a monthly credit of $500 for new jobs created in a two-year period beginning Jan. 1, 2012, with a $900 credit to companies that hire an honorably discharged veteran, a person with a disability or a job-seeker now collecting unemployment benefits.

A new grant program in the bill offers eligible companies with no more than 50 employees a subsidy to cover a portion of the cost and training of a new employee for six months. The bill also outlines a process under which permitting is to be streamlined.

(An analysis by the non-partisan Office of Legislative Research is online.)

But the novelty of bipartisanship in the autumn of a tumultuous year, when Mally’s budget and other major initiatives passed on largely party-line votes, was trumpeted as often as the details of the bill, An Act Promoting Economic Growth and Job Creation in the State.

“There is real disgust with what is happening in government, the partisanshsip,” said Senate Minority Leader John  P. McKinney, R-Fairfield. “Sadly, that disgust is justified.”

His counterpart in the House sounded a similar theme.

“One brief shining moment or maybe a new chapter in how we will do business in this chamber,” said House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk. “That’s what I think this bill represents.”

The sole dissenter in the House was Rep. Chris Coutu, R-Norwich, a candidate for Congress. Like Witkos, he objected to the package’s $626 million in bonding.

McKinney defended the scope of the borrowing, saying the governor has assured legislators that other borrowing will be deferred in favor of the jobs bill, keeping the state within its limiting on bonding.

“We’re not adding new debt,” McKinney said. “We’re findng better ways to spend our money.”

Even passing a bill nearly unanimously takes time. The debate lasted 2½ hours in each chamber, as legislators took turns saying they have absorbed a message from voters and businesses: Connecticut needs a better business environment.

“We all heard this,” said House Majority Leader J. Brendan Sharkey, D-Hamden. “We heard the need for making Connecticut a better place to do business, a friendlier place to do business, a place where people can find jobs, where we are coordinating our services, our educational resources to match what our companies in our state need.”

The overwhelming bulk of the job-growth initiatives will be financed with $626 million in bonding. After 20 years’ worth of interest charges are applied, the projected debt will approach $1.1 billion, according to the legislature’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis.

The loudest dissent to the bipartisan bill came outside the chamber from universal healthcare advocates who gathered outside the governor’s office to complain about what was not in the package.

Many held signs that said “health care = job growth.”

Juan A. Figueroa, president of the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, said it was a “missed opportunity” that the jobs legislation did not address health care coverage, which he said is a barrier to people starting businesses.

“Talking about ways to help grow jobs and push the economy toward recovery is great, but failing to address one of the biggest reason small businesses say they can’t retain or add workers means the state is overlooking a critical factor,” Figueroa said in a statement.

But the consensus jobs bill was just that — a collection of ideas acceptable to the leaders of all four legislative caucuses and the administration, which ruled out an attempt to broaden health coverage.

Negotiations continued until Tuesday night, and the final version of the bill was unavailable until midday, shortly before the start of debate in the House.

The total cost of the measure changed after the Office of Fiscal Analysis finished its review. The administration’s cost estimate of $516 milliion rose to $626 million over this year and next, and $701 million overall.

A quasi-public arm of the state’s economic development program, Connecticut Innovations Inc., would receive a dramatic boost in funding to invest in a wide-array of start up companies with $50 million in bonding over the current biennium and another $75 million in future years.

More than half of the initial bonding, $340 million, would be used to double the scope of the governor’s First Five Program, which provides incentives to companies committing to create 200 jobs.

Proposed by the governor and developed with the legislature this past spring, First Five originally gave the administration discretion to award “substantial financing assistance” annually to up to five new companies or existing businesses looking to expand. Eligible recipients must pledge to create at least 200 new jobs and can take up to five years to meet that goal provided they invest at least $25 million of their own funds in the expansion.

The program allows for a wide array of assistance, which can include tax credits, low-interest loans, technical consulting, or employee education and skill upgrades. Malloy already has awarded aid to four firms through the program, including a $20 million aid package announced Tuesday for NBC Sports to move into Stamford.

The additional bonding is expected to provide sufficient funds to allow up to 10 companies to participate through the end of the 2012-13 fiscal year.

A quasi-public arm of the state’s economic development program, Connecticut Innovations Inc., would receive a dramatic boost in funding to invest in a wide-array of start up companies with $125 million in bonding.

Another major bonded initiative involves $100 million for Small Business Express Package, which would provide job creation grants and loans specifically to smaller companies.

Nearly $10 million would be bonded both this fiscal year and next to expand the precision manufacturing program at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield and to establish or expand manufacturing technology programs at three other community colleges.

Other financing for job growth initiatives include:

• $50 million for bridge improvements through the “Fix It First” program.
• $20 million for the Step Up program, which will encourage businesses to add employees in new areas by subsidizing the cost of those posts for up to six months.
• $20 million for brownfield remediation.
• $10 million for infrastructure and other improvements to enhance commercial zones in municipalities through the Main Streets Initiative.
• $10 million to help nonprofit social service providers and local housing authorities replace aging oil furnaces and boilers with fuel-efficient equipment.

The plan also includes several tax changes, including effectively cutting in half the $250 business entity tax a flat registration fee businesses pay annually. But starting in 2013, that $250 payment would cover two years’ worth of registration. Analysts estimate this would cost state government $40 million in the 2013-14 fiscal year and every other fiscal year thereafter.

The minimum investment required for an investor to qualify for an income tax credit through the state’s Angel Investor program would drop from $100,000 to $25,000. This is expected to cost the state $1.5 million per year.

A new job expansion credit would be added to several tax programs, costing between $15 million and $17 million annually beginning next fiscal year.

Connecticut’s film tax credit program also would be expanded to offer a new category for television production costs. This is expected to cost the state between $10 million and $19 million next fiscal year and between $5 million and $10 million annually thereafter.

Perhaps the largest area of bipartisan consensus since Malloy first announced plans in June for an October session on job growth was a need to improve what is perceived by businesses as Connecticut’s oppressive regulatory environment.

The new legislative package calls for state government to hire a consultant to streamline regulations, particularly with a focus on four large permitting departments: Administrative Services, Energy and Environmental Protection, Transportation, and Economic and Community Development.

©Copyright 2011 The Connecticut News Project. All rights reserved.

Keith M. Phaneuf
October 25, 2011

A controversial proposal to employ public-private partnerships to implement certain state construction projects is one of a handful of “sticking points” delaying final, bipartisan agreement on a new package of job growth bills, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced Tuesday afternoon.

But Malloy, who addressed Capitol reporters briefly following a closed-door meeting with legislative leaders, quickly added that all parties had agreed to resume talks and predicted that a legislative package with bipartisan support would be presented to the full House and Senate on Wednesday.

The partnerships, often referred to as P-3 “is an area people are still talking about,” the Democratic governor said while flanked by lawmakers from both sides.

Union leaders and members representing thousands of public-sector workers balked at a public hearing last week when administration officials said they wanted greater flexibility to coordinate the design, construction and inspection services for capital projects through the private sector.

Malloy’s budget chief, Office of Policy and Management Secretary Benjamin Barnes, said the P-3 approach would complement the administration’s ongoing efforts to expand state bonding for capital construction projects, boosting a hard-hit industry.

State agencies overseeing capital projects typically coordinate design, construction and inspection services separately, often relying on a variety of companies to perform those roles. They also, depending on the project, may employ state engineers, other designers and inspectors.

Under the P-3 concept, the administration would have more flexibility to deal with one private entity, such as a construction company that would either provide its own design and inspection services, or coordinate with other businesses to provide them.

Union leaders countered that unless government oversight of all aspects of a public project is carefully maintained, they typically ended in botched work and cost-overruns.

“We urge you not to move forward with such an untested and controversial program during the special session,” Anderson told lawmakers. “Public-private partnerships reduce transparency, accountability and oversight of public services. And as government oversight shrinks, decisions driven by profit margin, and not a desire to ensure quality work and fair wages, become common.

The State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition, which negotiates benefits on behalf of about 45,000 unionized state workers, issued a statement praising Malloy and the legislature for holding a jobs growth special session, but it condemned the P-3 concept.

“Using this special session to rush through bad public policy ideas like ‘design-build’ construction and ‘public-private partnerships’ would be a tragic error,” the coalition statement read. “If implemented, these concepts could reduce oversight and accountability, open the door to corruption and back-room dealing, and ultimately both damage public projects and cost jobs.”

The governor said Monday that he believes a compromise can be found, and that the goal would be to use the P-3 approach for those projects whose financing is being repaid with revenues from that project. For example, if Connecticut wished to borrow funds to construct a new parking garage, it could hire a company or companies to design, construct and operate the garage — all under one contract. The company would then provide payments to cover the debt service with profits from the garage receipts.

Legislative leaders from both parties declined to comment following the closed-door meeting.

Though no drafts of legislative language have been released to date, the administration unveiled a broad outline last week of most proposals to be considered in Wednesday’s special legislative session.

State government would invest more than $500 million in bonding for business and infrastructure investments, offer new tax break aimed at small businesses, and hire a consultant to streamline regulations, focusing on four large permit-issuing departments.

©Copyright 2011 The Connecticut News Project. All rights reserved.

by Christine Stuart
Oct 24, 2011 11:45am

Office of Policy and Management Secretary Ben Barnes added a new subsection titled “Watch List” in his monthly letter detailing the state’s revenue and expenditure projections.

With little change between September and October “several areas of the budget have the potential to significantly impact the estimates provided in this letter,” Barnes wrote.

Barnes noted the higher than expected number of state employees who opted into the Health Enhancement Plan. The administration anticipated that more state employees would opt out of the plan and begin paying the higher $100 monthly premium, and a first ever deductible rather than participate in a wellness program. But 96 percent of the employees opted into the program.

As part of the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition agreement the administration anticipated that the state would save $102.5 million per year, for two years from the Health Enhancement Plan. Those numbers were primarily based on the amount of money it expected to receive from employees paying the higher premiums and deductibles.

Another area of vulnerability in the budget is the recently adopted Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which is funded mainly by the federal government. However, three legislative committees agreed that if the federal government didn’t come through with the necessary funding it would see if state funds could be used to help offset any shortfall.

“Finally, our projections for the General Fund assume no state resources will be provided to continue benefits under the Connecticut Energy Assistance Program should federal funding be exhausted,” Barnes wrote. “Connecticut’s share of federal LIHEAP funding should be sufficient to cover the benefit levels approved by the legislature.”

While he was unable to offer any projections on income tax collections because of the delay in reporting due to Tropical Storm Irene, Barnes did estimate the state will end the year with a $75.6 million cushion.

However, $75 million of it will immediately be used to offset the budget growth created by the transition to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

Transitioning from using a modified cash basis of accounting to GAAP could create a deficit as big as $1.5 billion. The budget calls for beginning to offset that deficit by using $75 million in this fiscal year and $50 million next fiscal year.

The remaining $600,000 from the projected $75.6 million cushion will be used to pay down the borrowing the state did in 2009.

“We also note that the adopted budget is only $1 million below the constitutional expenditure cap, so spending will need to be brought in line with appropriations in order to remain within the cap’s limit,” Barnes wrote.

Currently the state is spending $2.7 million over the cap, an increase of $700,000 over last month.

A shortfall of $30 million is projected for the Department of Social Services’ Medicaid account, and the Public Defenders Services Commission will experience a deficiency of $555,000 based on the projected $2 million shortfall in the contract attorney’s account due mostly to cases handled by child protection attorneys. The Teachers’ Retirement Board is also expected to experience a deficiency of $2.4 million in its health services account die to higher than expected membership.

Barnes said most of the deficiencies are offset by $15 million in the Treasurers’ Debt Service account as a result of a lower than anticipated interest costs on a bond sale in May, personal service lapses of $2.3 million, and $13 million from the Department of Children and Families.

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