Good Government or Just Good Politics?

 

Susan Kniep, Former Mayor, East Hartford Town Council Member

 

Monday, August 4, 1997

 

 

 

In October 1994, state House Republicans hired, with taxpayers’ money, a former Hartford TV news anchor for public relations work.  Don lark was paid $20,000 for promoting the interest of Connecticut Republicans

 

This is a bad use of taxpayer money, and it is not unusual.  State taxpayers spend nearly $8 million yearly in wages, health and pension benefits to finance such purely partisan positions in the offices of the House Republicans, House Democrats, Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats.

 

These jobs are handed out by the leaders of the Republican and Democrat House and Senate offices.  Several of these 164 jobs are at salaries that far surpass Gov. John Rowland’s salary of $78,000.

 

If our state is an equal opportunity employer, then one might expect the Connecticut taxpayer to have an equal opportunity to complete for these “state” jobs. Unless the Connecticut taxpayer is a party loyalist, however, he is locked out of these positions.

 

These jobs are not publicly posted, according to the personnel administrator for the Joint Committee on Legislative Management.  Written job descriptions, personnel evaluations and pay scales for these purely partisan jobs do not exist.

 

Some of these jobs are at very lucrative salaries - $104,441, $101,948, $91,839, $85,000, $80,250, $79,160, $73,661, and so on. How are Connecticut taxpayers, who financially support these offices, assured that they are not paying to finance the political agendas of the Republican and Democratic parties?

 

Recently, state auditors reported that “uniform” written guidelines describing prohibited practices and permitted practices have not been developed for the partisan staffs.”

 

Guidelines should be written, the auditors said.

 

Only through clearly defined and written job descriptions, pay scales and employee evaluations can the Connecticut taxpayer be afforded some measure of accountability for state-taxpayer-funded jobs.

 

And only through clearly defined and written contracts will be know what we are paying for.  Making any one party look good should not be the taxpayers’ responsibility.

 

In the absence of written contracts, job descriptions, pay scale, employee evaluations and employer guidelines, the Connecticut taxpayer does not know if he is paying for good government or just good politics.   The Connecticut taxpayer should not have to toil each day to pay his taxes to promote patronage or guid-pro-quo politics.

 

These partisan jobs should be open to the tax-paying public, which finances them.  If our elected state representatives and senators continue to deny the public access to these state jobs, then the money to pay for these lucrative jobs should come from the Republican and Democratic parties – certainly not from the hard working taxpayers of Connecticut.

 

 

*************************