The cuts are minor in terms of the state's overall budgetary problems, but highly significant to the agencies involved.
Cuts ordered by the governor’s office to three state watchdog agencies are raising questions from clean government advocates. Gov. Dannel Malloy's administration is under investigation by some of the agencies he’s targeted.
It's a time of pain and belt-tightening in every taxpayer-funded state office, but recissions ordered to the State Elections Enforcement Commission, the Office of State Ethics and the Freedom of Information Commission are raising eyebrows nonetheless. The cuts, totalling less than $200,000, are minor in terms of the state’s overall budgetary problems, but highly significant to the agencies involved.
The heads of the agencies have written to Malloy’s budget chief Ben Barnes, saying they don’t believe the cuts are allowed by law. That’s because of legislation passed in 2004, in the wake of then-governor John Rowland’s scandals, which protects the government watchdog agencies from cuts undertaken unilaterally by the governor’s office.
Cheri Quickmire of Common Cause says Malloy is inviting comparison to his predecessor. “State Elections Enforcement and the Office of State Ethics are investigating the governor’s administration on two different fronts at the time that additional cuts have been ordered," she told WNPR. "So it raises the idea of a similar interpretation to what happened in previous governor John Rowland’s administration.”
Barnes meanwhile has said that the budget just passed by the General Assembly does authorize Malloy to make unspecified cuts of almost $69 million, an authority that bypasses the 2004 statute.
Common Cause says it would like to see a determination on that claim from Attorney General George Jepsen.
