Sen. Sampson Statement on the Partnership for Connecticut

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 9, 2020

HARTFORD – This past Friday at the State Capitol, there were two press conferences held to call attention to SB 367 AN ACT SUBJECTING THE PARTNERSHIP FOR CONNECTICUT, INC. TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT AND STATE ETHICS CODE.  This bill would subject the Partnership for Connecticut’s quasi-public arrangement with the State of Connecticut,  better known as the “Dalio Deal”, to additional transparency and ethics requirements.

As it stands, the Partnership for Connecticut, Incorporated  is enjoying a carve out which makes them exempt from the state employee Code of Ethics and Freedom of Information Act.

Senator Rob Sampson (R-16) serves as the lead Republican Senator on the Government Administration and Elections committee and he believes the changes being requested in the legislation – subjecting the Partnership to adhere to the disclosure and transparency required of a regular state entity – do not go far enough.

“I absolutely support this legislation.  Anything we can do to better monitor the use of taxpayer dollars is an improvement.  However, the larger issue is that this is bad public policy and even a worse precedent.  Local boards of education are the authority that determines education policy.  To the extent there is a need for statewide policy, that is properly the responsibility of elected representatives in the state legislature.”

“Essentially, this is handing over $100M in taxpayer dollars to a private company with zero obligations to the state, and worse giving them the ability to craft public policy – basically it’s allowing unelected bureaucrats to replace elected officials. You cannot fix a broken system by building a new one and circumventing the problem.  If changes need to be made to Connecticut’s education administration, then we should sit down as a legislature to address this – not craft laws instead to provide millionaires with some hybrid platform to pay enormous salaries, avoid any accountability, and hand select certain school districts as winners.

“If the Dalios want to do something independent to support and improve education, more power to them.  If they want to donate $100M to the state’s efforts, that is great too, but this partnership is a mistake and should be scrapped.” said Sen. Sampson.

Senator Rob Sampson serves the 16th senatorial district which includes the towns of Cheshire, Prospect, Southington, Waterbury and Wolcott.