The Red Line

Some news media coverage of Connecticut state employee compensation misinforms the public. Periodic news articles titillate readers with the pay of the state’s highest earners. Yet, six high-paid UCONN athletic coaches and 33 high-paid UCONN Health doctors are not the reason that the overall state payroll has exploded under Governor Lamont.

The problem is that Lamont is giving away the farm. He has awarded the unionized workforce six consecutive annual wage increases that have driven up pay by a stunning 33%. And he is poised to award a seventh. Instead, he should freeze wages.

As the new year dawns, Ned is in a fix. Should he finally freeze wages or deliver another pay raise?

His two-term predecessor, Democrat Dannel Malloy, froze state employee wages three times, leading the Hearst newspapers in Connecticut to run my recent column with a headline asking the pointed question “Why Can’t Lamont Freeze Wages?"

Trouble is, last spring Ned promised a state employee union convention “Every year that I’ve been here you’ve gotten a raise, and every year I’m here, you’re going to get a raise.”

Lamont was “here” in 2025, but state employees did not get a raise. They have been working without a wage contract since last June 30th. 

State employees have received annual pay raises every one of Ned’s first six years in office. The raises compound to a whopping 33%, super-rich wages that elicited the Hearst headline implicitly asking “isn’t that enough?”

Can Ned deliver a seventh consecutive annual pay raise?

Maybe...

Recently, a Connectiocut state employee accused me of misrepresentation in saying that state employee wages have increased 33% during Governor Lamont’s six years in office. He claimed to have received only 15%, which was wildly inaccurate. My column set the record straight.

This week, another state employee attacked me. While acknowledging the 33% six-year wage increase, he accused me of ignoring four years of zero increases surrounding the six Lamont years. This week’s accuser is a well-paid member of the faculty of UCONN Health; let’s call him “the professor.”

First, the only year this side of the six years is the current fiscal year, in which there are no zeros.

I write often about Connecticut state employee compensation, which is the highest in the 50 states. Wages have increased 33% under Governor Lamont, rising to second highest rank.

Pensions are so generous that some pensions exceed final salaries. Health care coverage ranks consistently as most generous.

Readers ask whether I get hate mail from state employees.

No, not until I received a recent diatribe from a Dept. of Corrections worker, Mr. X.

First, Mr. X challenged the 33% wage increase, asserting that he gotten only 15%.

Connecticut Democrats are delusional. They clamor that democracy is under assault by Donald Trump and hold statewide “No Kings” rallies; then, they host a completely undemocratic special legislative session and anoint Ned Lamont King.

An emergency session is supposed to deal with a truly unforeseen emergency, yet this session dealt with the long-running issues of housing, the state takeover Waterbury Hospital and the long-anticipated reversion of federal assistance to pre-COVID levels.

All of this could have awaited the regular session less than two months away.

Had there been hearings, someone could have pointed out that Donald Trump has probably already solved Connecticut’s housing crisis.

A housing availability and affordability crisis can only exist when demand exceeds supply. At the most fundamental level, growth in demand for housing can only come from population growth. 

According to the Census Bureau, population growth in Connecticut...

State employees are retiring with pensions one-third higher than their final salaries. Yes, higher! Corrections workers with average final salaries of $75,000 have been retiring with pensions averaging $101,000, and state police officers with average ending salaries of $109,000 have retired with average pensions of $141,000.

How is this possible? Overtime spiking.

Over 28,000 state workers have the right to include overtime in the calculation of their pension benefit. Unsurprisingly, many work long, long hours of overtime just before retirement. 

Most of all, the practice persists because the public is unaware – and kept unaware by governors and even most members of the General Assembly who, otherwise, would have to answer embarrassing questions. 

It is time to ask those questions.