“State employees have repeatedly informed the governor and his budget office where significant cost savings could be achieved,” said Stephen Anderson, an air protection control engineer in the state’s agriculture department. “Even where there’s potential to save hundreds of millions of dollars — such as in reducing the over-reliance on costly for-profit contractors — our proposals have been routinely ignored. Now Republican legislators have proposed eliminating the state’s contracting oversight board, which would only make protecting taxpayer dollars from waste, fraud and abuse even tougher,” added Anderson, who also serves as president of CSEA SEIU Local 2001.
“Legislators are missing the biggest problem facing our state; inequality,” said Ed Leavy, an English teacher at Bullard Havens Technical High School. “They’re overlooking that deficits are a symptom of allowing Connecticut to become both the richest and the most unequal state in the nation. Until lawmakers ask the richest 1% to pay their fair share, proposals like those released today will do little to close current or future shortfalls. Worse, they’ll make the current level of inequality and the downward spiral of the middle class worse,” added Leavy, who also serves as president of the State Vocational Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 4200-A.
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The State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) unites all 16 unions representing 45,000 Connecticut state public service workers together to address important issues to all its members and the people they serve.
