HARTFORD, CT — Only 113 state employees have received layoff notices, according to an accounting by the Office of Policy and Management.
Twenty-two from the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, 88 from the Department of Social Services, and three from the Office of Policy and Management.
It should be noted that receiving a layoff notice doesn’t mean the employee has been separated from state service.
“Most employees who receive notices will be asked to remain at their position during their notice period, unless there are safety concerns, and individual arrangements will be made by agencies based on their business needs,” a memo announcing the layoff notices reads. “They will be paid their salary and maintain all their state-provided benefits throughout the contractual notice period.”
The revised budget Gov. Dannel P. Malloy released Monday continues to assume $700 million in labor savings in 2018 and $856 million in 2019.
Malloy said Monday that the $700 million is a “reasonable number” and one he’s hopeful they will be able to reach in their negotiations with the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition.
Union leadership will still need to vote to open the SEBAC contract for health and pension benefits and then rank-and-file unions members will need to ratify a deal. There’s no information yet about what exactly that deal will look like.
The governor noted that an agreement needs to be made in the coming days and not weeks.
Malloy said in February that he would need to layoff 4,200 state employees to achieve the labor savings he included in his budget proposal.
A spokesman for CSEA SEIU Local 2001 said Malloy’s revised budget proposal “will create chaos for our state’s working men and women who will see the services they depend on slashed, and many families will see loved ones lose their jobs.”
The budget outlined Monday by the governor’s office eliminates the State Contracting Standards Board, which is tasked with reviewing state contracts for cost savings.
“The elimination of the SCSB in conjunction with an increase in state privatization should give all taxpayers pause,” Ben Philips, a spokesman for CSEA SEIU Local 2001, said. “By eliminating this board, the governor is abolishing the watchdog that ensures private contracts are in the public’s best interest.“
The board was created following former Republican Gov. John G. Rowland’s improper dealings with contractors more than a decade ago, and, more recently, a state contractor’s failure to install storm drains on an I-84 reconstruction project around Waterbury during former Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s administration.
The unions have been calling on state lawmakers to raise taxes on Connecticut’s wealthiest residents, instead of focusing on spending cuts.
