Fasano: Speaker Treading the Edge of Conflict

July 21, 2017

Hartford – Senate Republican President Pro Tempore Len Fasano (R-North Haven) released the following statement regarding Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz’s intention to call not only the SEBAC health and pension benefits contract for a vote on Monday, but to also call over 30 wage contracts for the state’s collective bargaining units that were only delivered to lawmakers yesterday and which do not have any accompanying financial analysis yet.

“It is beyond radically irresponsible to try to call all wage contracts for a vote without having any financial analysis of what the contracts will actually cost. The fact that the speaker is pushing for a vote on over 30 contracts without an analysis from the governor’s budget office or from nonpartisan staff speaks to someone who is treading the edge of a conflict. Why would any leader force their caucus to vote on dozens of contracts that no one knows what their impact is on the state budget, not even the governor? You could not be more irresponsible or tone deaf to the fact that we are in a fiscal crisis and we shouldn’t be approving any contracts we’ve received less than 24 hours ago with zero economic analysis.

“A vote separate from the budget needs to happen on all the wage and benefits contracts. But that vote must be an informed decision. To put over three dozen wage contracts into one vote before any financial analysis has been completed is irresponsible. The SEBAC deal we have been aware of for some time and I understand the nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis is due to release a complete financial analysis on Monday. However, the wage contracts were only just received by lawmakers on July 20 with no accompanying analysis. It’s simply wrong to pass something before you know what’s in it.”