By Chris Powell
More than a million dollars were lost this month in a couple of incidents of state government’s mismanagement, and in full view. But, from the governor on down, no one in authority took notice. There wasn’t a peep or even a shrug.
First, Connecticut Public, the broadcasting outfit, reported that a teacher at Platt Technical High School in Milford, fired three years ago for baiting minority students with racist stereotypes and racial epithets, was reinstated to her $98,000-a-year job with $250,000 in back pay. Now she wants reimbursement for legal expenses as well.
It’s not that the teacher, Nancy Avon, was cleared of misconduct. Instead the arbiter deciding her appeal concluded that firing her was excessive because the state technical school system seldom fires anyone and because there was no “progressive discipline” for the teacher — that discipline began with the ultimate punishment rather than a reprimand or temporary suspension.
Then the Journal Inquirer reported that the State Board of Regents for Higher Education had agreed to rehire Nicole Esposito as chief executive of Manchester Community College to settle her lawsuit claiming that she was let go because of gender discrimination and retaliation by college executives.
Esposito is to receive $775,000 — $100,000 in back pay, $400,000 in damages, and $275,000 in legal fees.
The outcome of the technical school case suggests the usual about state government — that the inmates are running the asylum and that labor rules and union contracts continue to nullify basic management and the public interest.
But people who follow government in Connecticut already knew that, and presumably technical school administrators did too. So why wasn’t “progressive discipline” attempted?
Why hasn’t anyone in the Lamont administration — or its predecessors, for that matter — ever attempted to restore management’s prerogatives in government employee labor law and union contracts?
And exactly who in the technical school system administration will take responsibility for the failure and expense here? No one has volunteered, and journalism hasn’t asked.
In the community college case, the abject and expensive capitulation by State Board of Regents for Higher Education implies that something indeed was gravely wrong about the college president’s removal. So exactly what happened and who was responsible?
The board has provided no explanation.
While there is a state election in 10 weeks, it would be unusual if anyone in Connecticut’s minority party, the Republicans, pressed these issues, since relevance is not their style.
Of course these two cases are not rarities in government in Connecticut. They are just what happened to be discovered and noted this month by the state’s ever-diminishing cadre of journalists. Any close examination of such cases over time discloses that, because of negligent or enfeebled management, state government and municipal government have become generators of huge financial liability for the public, about which nothing is ever done.
A few months ago state government paid $9 million to settle the damage lawsuit of a patient at the state hospital for the criminally insane, Whiting Forensic Institute in Middletown, who had been assaulted and otherwise abused by hospital employees over a long period, the misconduct being captured on video. So their silence about the technical school and community college awards suggests that the governor and legislators figure that a measly $1 million in mismanagement is chump change.
But the chumps — those who pay taxes — might want to ask about it.
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PARENTS BETRAYED: Last week Connecticut journalism missed the bigger part of a story it reported with vacuous celebration — the Hartford school system’s adoption of a policy on students with gender dysphoria. That is, transgender students.
While the news reports emphasized that the policy aims to make transgender students comfortable, they omitted that the policy orders school employees to keep the gender dysphoria of students secret from their own parents.
As in New Haven’s and some other schools, now Hartford’s schools, not parents, will decide how a student’s gender dysphoria is to be handled.
Such policies may be politically correct but they are beyond arrogant, which is why they are prompting lawsuits throughout the country.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years.
Chris Powell column 