(AAUP-CSU) 2016 Legislative Report
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
American Association of University Professors – Connecticut State University Chapter (AAUP-CSU) 2016 Legislative Report Gallo & Robinson, LLC June, 2016 Betty Gallo Kate Robinson Joe Grabarz PREFACE As this legislative session began we faced a State and System budget sinking deeply into the red and a new leadership team at the System Offices. CSU-AAUP and Gallo & Robinson have worked closely together with supportive legislators to ensure that faculty interests were represented. We appreciate the significant faculty involvement in legislative activity and deepened relationships with legislators. Visits with individual legislators in their offices and districts have helped increase awareness of the concerns we have and the changes we advocate as usual but we particularly appreciate the faculty that stepped up and agreed to serve on various Commissions, working groups and task forces. There will be more. Numerous and timely action alerts, letters, testimony, flyers and position papers have all been valuable to our collective efforts. We have significantly impacted legislation in our favor and we have improved the standing of CSU-AAUP faculty as a valuable resource in higher education discussions. The legislation discussed in this report represents a major effort by CSU-AAUP staff and faculty, Gallo & Robinson staff and supportive legislators to shape events in favor of CSU-AAUP members and to make the State’s system of public higher education better for everyone involved. We have significant challenges coming up next session and it is incumbent upon us all to keep aware of opportunities to discuss how critical the dedicated faculty and staff are to ensuring the CSU System and the State meet their higher education goals. Contracts and labor issues are likely to dominate the next session and in addition we will have many new legislators and legislative leaders and new Chairs and members of the Higher Education and Employment Committee. The issues of outcomes based funding, open source textbooks, certification of online learning, tuition and fees costs, student readiness, the achievement gap, declining enrollment and transfer and articulation are all likely to continue to be vigorously debated. The budget situation is generally thought to be looming worse next year and the authority given to the Governor to make further unspecified cuts and withholdings and recessions will have ongoing impacts on the System. We at Gallo & Robinson are proud and pleased to have been a part of these past efforts and look forward to working together on future challenges and opportunities. I. BUDGET This section is in chronological order, starting with the Deficiency bill, SB 474 and then discussing HB 5044, The Governor’s Budget proposal, the Appropriations proposal, and the final budget, SB 501. As we went from one budget to another we were monitoring the budgets for anything that affected CSU or state employees. This session was about budgets. It seemed like there was a new budget or proposed budget every couple of weeks. The major reason for all the budgets was worsening deficiencies for the fiscal year we are in FY16 and the fiscal year that begins on July 1, 2016. The session began with the Governor’s proposed revisions to the biennium budget adopted last session. But the Governor had issued recessions in September and again in December. And in case those rescissions were not extensive enough for the Legislature to act; the Governor proposed additional cuts to hospitals and the community health centers. These would have eliminated all the payments to the hospitals in FY16. And the fiscal situation for FY16 was just getting worse. So in the midst of the normal budget process, the legislature and Governor began to negotiate a deficiency budget for FY 16. After a lot of public fighting about who was willing to take on the hard job of cutting the budget, the leadership in both parties and the Governor sat down to negotiate the deficiency bill, SB 474. They exchanged cut proposals and then more cut proposals. Finally, they came to an agreement and passed a deficiency bill which was adopted on March 29th. It was clear that the Republicans wanted to take credit for the restoration of most of the hospital funding and funding for towns which is why they were involved in these negotiations and most of them voted for the bill. March 29th Deficit Mitigation Bill The deficit mitigation bill they adopted on March 29th was SB 474. It addressed the deficit for the FY16 budget as it was projected at this point. It was adopted in the Senate with 3 no votes including Senators Bartolomeo (D) Meriden; Linares(R) Westbrook; and, Markley (R) Southington. The House passed it on a vote of 127-16. That vote count is below: N ABERCROMBIE Y LESSER N ACKERT Y NOUJAIM Y ADAMS Y LOPES Y ADINOLFI Y O'DEA Y ALBIS Y LUXENBERG Y ALBERTS Y O'NEILL N ALEXANDER Y MCCARTHY Y AMAN Y PAVALOCK VAHEY Y ALTOBELLO Y MCCRORY Y BELSITO Y PERILLO Y ARCE Y MCGEE Y BERTHEL Y PISCOPO Y ARCONTI Y MEGNA Y BETTS Y REBIMBAS Y ARESIMOWICZ Y MILLER, P. Y BOCCHINO Y RUTIGLIANO Y BAKER N MORIN Y BOLINSKY N SAMPSON Y BARAM X MUSHINSKY X BUCK- Y SCOTT TAYLOR N BECKER, B. Y NICASTRO Y BUMGARDNER Y SHABAN Y BERGER Y PERONE Y BYRON Y SIMANSKI Y BOUKUS Y PORTER Y CAMILLO Y SMITH N BRYCKI Y RANDALL Y CANDELORA, Y SREDZINSKI V. Y BUTLER Y REED Y CARNEY N SRINIVASAN Y CANDELARIA, Y RILEY Y CARPINO Y STANESKI J. Y CONROY Y RITTER Y CARTER N TWEEDIE Y COOK Y ROJAS Y CASE Y VAIL Y CURREY Y ROSARIO Y D'AMELIO Y WILMS Y D'AGOSTINO Y ROSE Y DAVIS Y WOOD Y DARGAN Y ROVERO Y DEVLIN Y YACCARINO Y DEMICCO N SANCHEZ N DUBITSKY Y ZAWISTOWSKI Y DILLON Y SANTIAGO, E. Y FERRARO Y ZIOBRON Y ESPOSITO Y SANTIAGO, H. Y FLOREN Y ZUPKUS Y FLEISCHMANN Y SCANLON N FRANCE Y FOX Y SERRA Y FREY X FRITZ Y SIMMONS Y GIEGLER Y GENGA Y STAFSTROM Y HARDING N GONZALEZ Y STALLWORTH Y HOYDICK Y SHARKEY (SPKR) Y GRESKO X STEINBERG Y KLARIDES Y GUERRERA Y TERCYAK Y KOKORUDA N HADDAD Y TONG X KUPCHICK N HAMPTON X URBAN Y LABRIOLA Y HENNESSY Y VARGAS Y LAVIELLE Y GENTILE (DEP) Y HEWETT Y VERRENGIA Y LEGEYT Y GODFREY (DEP) Y JANOWSKI Y WALKER N MACLACHLAN Y MILLER, P.B. (DEP) Y JOHNSON Y WILLIS Y MCCARTY, K. Y MORRIS (DEP) X JUTILA Y ZONI Y MCGORTY, B. Y ORANGE (DEP) Y KINER VACANT Y MINER Y RYAN (DEP) Y LEMAR Y MULLIGAN Y SAYERS (DEP) Leading up to this bill, budget proposals from the Governor and the two parties’ leadership had all suggested different areas to be cut. Many of the proposed suggested cuts would have an impact on services of concern to our clients. The Republicans had a proposal that included a list of “system changes” they wanted to make such as reducing state employee pensions and increasing the state employees’ co-pays for their insurance. These items would have required the state employee unions bargaining agent (SEBAC) to reopen a contract they had negotiated with Governor Malloy in 2001, which included changes in pensions, increased co-pays and no pay increase for three years. It does not expire until 2022. There were conversations and proposals throughout the session related to reopening this contract but the session ended without the state employee unions agreeing to allow the contract to be changed. Other such proposals included requiring a vote by the General Assembly on every state employee contract (Now the legislature can reject a proposed state employee union contract by a majority vote in one house or reject a collective bargaining agreement by a 2/3 vote in one house). They also wanted to change the prevailing wage law that required certain level of wages on public projects. None of these proposals were part of the deficiency budget but these items would come up again and again during the ongoing budget negotiations. Another of their proposals was restrictions on overtime. SB 474 included the modifications of FY 16 budget totaling $220 million which was the deficit at this point in the session. The deficit for FY16 grew by another $ 280 million by the end of the session and that deficit had to be addressed in the final budget. Despite the fact that finding savings that would rollover into FY17 was a goal expressed by all the participants in the negotiations; only $123 million could rollover into the FY 17 to reduce that deficiency which also kept increasing as the session progressed. Some of the most significant provisions of the deficit mitigation budget we thought you would be interested in were: Transfers from various accounts such as $6 million from the Community Investment Act(CIA) money; $2.3 million from the Connecticut State University (CSU) operating Fund; and, $7,390,000 from the Citizen Election Fund. All together there were $69.2 million of such transfers in this budget. The budget also included a large amount of money that OPM could reduce to achieve savings including a new $97,433,061 reduction to FY 16 executive branch allotments. The language did limit those reductions to only 1% of any line item. The Deficit Mitigation Plan also cut $69 million in various line items we thought you would be interested in: . Board of Regents-$752,270 from CSU; $27,777 from Transform CSU; $765,555 from Community Tech Colleges; and $5,660 from Board of Regents . Reserve for Salary Adjustments-$14,200,179. University of Connecticut-$1.5 million in operating expenses.