Responding to his budget director’s alarms, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has called on the General Assembly to turn down a contract for non-teaching employees at UConn. Accepting the contract potentially, they say, could cost the state an additional $1 billion over five years.
Malloy said the contract, negotiated last year, does not reflect the state’s current economic reality. He wants both sides to re-open contract negotiations.
Kathleen Sanner, president of the University of Connecticut Professional Employees Association, said the governor’s focus as well as that of some legislators is “a misdirection of the facts on a fairly negotiated agreement.” Sanner said the university receives a block grant from the state that covers 30 percent of the operating budget. “To suggest that this contract will increase costs to taxpayers is simply wrong,” she said in a statement.
State Office of Policy & Management Secretary Ben Barnes told the governor in a memo the $1 billion reflects the potential effect the contract would have on negotiations with other bargaining units who would seek raises similar to what the UConn Professional Employees Association wants.
Barnes said that was too costly given the state’s finances. He also mentioned raises don’t make sense in an environment where layoffs are under consideration.
The direct fiscal impact for the life of the five-year contract would be $93.9 million in additional spending, Barnes said in his memo, driven in part by an increase in work hours from 35 to 40. Barnes said UConn did not factor in those costs when it estimated that the contract would require an additional $55.3 million over its five-year term.
