How is college boss Cheng worth that huge salary and perks?

By Chris Powell

At last Terrence Cheng, chancellor of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities System — “president” not being pretentious enough — has managed to embarrass Governor Lamont and Democratic leaders in the General Assembly. Cheng did it with his expense-account extravagance reported last week by Connecticut’s Hearst newspapers. 

Now journalism should embarrass the governor and legislators a little more.

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The Hearst report told of dozens of luxurious meals charged to the college system by Cheng, along with a chauffeur improperly hired to drive his state-provided car, and a monthly housing allowance of $2,100 on top of his salary of $442,000 and more than $41,000 in fringe benefits. Also exposed were a long delay in releasing some of Cheng’s expense records and his continuing refusal to provide others, though their disclosure is almost certainly required by law. 

All this extravagance was enjoyed while Cheng was pleading the college system’s poverty to the General Assembly, students, and faculty and while the system was raising tuition.

Cheng’s stratospheric salary isn’t new. Neither is his arrogance. They have just been ignored. 

What’s new is Cheng’s mock humility upon receiving criticism from legislative leaders, who resent that a corruption scandal has erupted just a few days before a legislative election.

“This is one of those moments where you learn as you’re doing your job,” Cheng told the Hearst papers. “Just because we’re allowed to do something doesn’t mean we should do it.” 

Cheng is awfully late to figure this out, since he has held academic and administrative positions in public higher education for many years. But then public higher education doesn’t have much respect for the public.

In any case Governor Lamont and legislative leaders are demanding quick release of the missing expense records and promising an investigation, and the college system’s board has taken Cheng’s credit card away, at least temporarily. 

That’s a start, but journalism now should ask the governor, Cheng’s board, and the legislators why they thought Cheng was worth all that money in the first place and whether they still think he is. What has made someone who is so hypocritical and arrogant so special? 

After answering those questions, the governor and legislators might continue to pursue the public interest by noticing that state government has dozens of administrative positions, many of them with nebulous responsibilities, paying salaries above $200,000, and by wondering whether Connecticut is getting all the value it should get from them.

The Cheng scandal comes just weeks after a report from the state auditors described comprehensive financial mismanagement in the Correction Department, including, sensationally, two years of mistaken double salary payments to a prison lieutenant who declined to report the mistake and now has been guaranteed another five years of employment with the department so she can repay the misappropriated money out of her future salary.

Connecticut state government is not a place of ruthless efficiency. It’s not even a place of ordinary financial controls. Yet years ago the General Assembly eliminated its Program Review and Investigations Committee, thereby virtually proclaiming that it didn’t really want to know too much about wasted money and failing programs and policies. 

Has this lack of interest resulted from the aspiration of legislators to positions like Cheng’s in the executive branch of government once they serve enough time in legislative office to qualify for a state pension that will be boosted enormously by a few years receiving a Cheng-like salary?

WHY RISK MORE FRAUD?: State Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, is being criticized by Democrats for insisting that there is voter fraud in Connecticut. While recent notorious cases in Bridgeport and Stamford show there indeed has been some, Sampson’s critics claim there isn’t enough to worry about.

However much there is, a question is implicitly raised by the state constitutional amendment on the ballot Nov. 5, an amendment that would allow unlimited voting by absentee ballot: Why risk more voter fraud? Early voting in person now provides much more convenience in voting, but the more people vote through intermediaries by absentee ballot rather than directly, in person, the more fraud there will be.

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Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)