Politics & Government

Malloy Orders 4,742 Layoff Notices Sent Out

The governor said Tuesday that his staff has still not reached agreement with state unions over $2 billion in concessions and that he was preparing to implement his "Plan B" budget.

With no agreement with unions in place, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy announced today that he has ordered more than 4,700 layoff notices to start going out to state employees.

Malloy’s $40.1 billion biennium budget requires $1 billion in givebacks from unionized state employees already under contract each year, but no agreement has been reached with any of those unions yet. On Tuesday, Malloy announced that the negotiations were still continuing, but that he was also making plans to implement his “Plan B” budget.

"We need to cut an additional $1 billion in spending in order to balance the budget in each year of the biennium, because I refuse to raise taxes beyond what has already been agreed to,” Malloy said in a release Tuesday. “We held off on any layoff notifications while we tried to complete a deal over the weekend and on Monday night.  Unfortunately, absent an agreement and in order to comply with contractual notice requirements and the provisions of the budget agreement signed last week, we need to begin those notifications today.”

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Malloy has ordered the Office of Policy and Management to begin issuing layoff notices to 4,742 state employees, which will result in approximately $455 million in savings. Malloy has also directed the agency to begin the process necessary to cut an additional $545 million in spending spread across a variety of state agencies. Malloy said those cuts would likely result in additional layoffs. The governor's staff said that the preference is to notify each affected employee in person, but if that is not possible a layoff notice will be sent by certified mail. 

"I want to be clear that this is not the road I wanted to go down,” Malloy said. “I didn't want to lay people off, and I didn't want to make additional spending cuts beyond the $780 million in spending we've already cut.

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"But I have no choice. I promised the people of Connecticut that I would change the way we do business in Hartford. I promised to deliver a budget that is balanced with no gimmicks, and I will. My preference is to do that by asking everyone to share in the sacrifice, including my fellow state employees.”

Larry Dorman, spokesman for the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition, said in a news release Tuesday that union leaders would continue to meet with Malloy's staff for at least one more day in an effort to try and find a compromise, but that unions were being asked to shoulder too much of the "shared sacrifice" called for under Malloy's budget. 

"Our discussions with the administration cannot be separated from the broader struggle for a fair economy based on shared sacrifice," Dorman said. "Middle class workers, whether public or private, did not cause Connecticut’s economic problems and should not be asked to bear an unfair burden in their resolution. This is especially true when Wall Street and the super-rich who have profited at our expense during the economic downturn have been asked to sacrifice so little. Our members will continue to fight not just for themselves, but for the public they serve, the services they provide and for good jobs, and livable communities, for all working families."

OPM Secretary Benjamin Barnes outlined where the reductions would come from and how the $545 million in spending cuts could be realized in a May 6 letter to Malloy. 

“These options are unattractive policy choices and I offer them with a sense of reluctance and even regret,” OPM Secretary Benjamin Barnes said in a May 6 letter to Malloy outlining the additional cuts needed to balance the budget. “Clearly, implementing these changes would be a worst case outcome – painful for our citizens, painful for our employees, and those who rely on state services. It is my fervent hope that an agreement will be reached in short order, eliminating the need for either personnel reductions or additional programmatic cuts.”

included a May 31 deadline to achieve the needed $2 billion in savings, and any deal or alterations to that budget would need to be approved before the legislature adjourns for the summer June 8. 

Barnes letter to Malloy, which outlines the reductions called for under the governor's “Plan B” Budget, is attached as a PDF to this article.


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