By CHRIS POWELL
Now that the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system has lost a second straight highly paid chief executive — the “chancellor” — because of misconduct of some kind, maybe Governor Lamont should find some agency other than the system’s Board of Regents to appoint the next one.
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Maybe better still, the governor should ask for the resignations of all 15 regents and replace them with people who will strive to fill the chancellor’s position with more competence and integrity than “diversity.” The regents should realize by now that people of all races, ethnicities, religious affiliations, sexual orientations, and career backgrounds can be corrupted by power and privilege, or just be lousy.
Last year the regents shuffled Terrence Cheng out of the chancellor’s job and into a contrived position as “strategic adviser” to the board at the same compensation — nearly $500,000 per year — after he was caught abusing his expense account and failing to move to Connecticut despite accepting a bonus to do so. The regents were afraid that the contract they brilliantly had given Cheng might be construed in court to forbid firing him.
So Cheng is enjoying in luxurious leisure the year that remained on his contract and seems to be advising the board mainly via telepathy, if at all. When his days as “strategic adviser” are over, Cheng’s contract guarantees him a tenured English professorship at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. Then Cheng will receive a comfortable pension.
That is, thanks to the Board of Regents, Connecticut may never be rid of Cheng’s expense, but no one will ever be held accountable for the disaster he was.
Last week the regents placed Cheng’s successor, O. John Maduko, on administrative leave as he came under investigation for an unspecified violation of policy, whereupon he resigned without explanation. At least the regents didn’t appoint him a “strategic adviser” too.
The regents refuse to explain the problem with Maduko and are cloaking their refusal with government’s worst non-sequitur: that it can’t be explained because it’s “a personnel matter.” But of course most of government is “a personnel matter” and while news organizations seem to be vacantly accepting the non-sequitur’s cover-up, nothing in state law prevents the regents from explaining.
When a government agency refuses to explain something because it’s “a personnel matter,” it means that the agency is too embarrassed and cowardly to account for itself.
As a matter of state freedom-of-information law, any documents held by the colleges and universities system about Maduko’s suspension and resignation would be disclosable. Of course the Board of Regents may refuse to comply with the law until the Freedom of Information Commission or a court orders such documents released, but journalistic and political clamor for an explanation should be directed at the governor, who could order that an explanation be given and who indeed should do so, given the recent reports by Connecticut’s Hearst newspapers about his administration’s hostility to transparent government, including the governor’s own improper use of private e-mail and text messages to conduct and conceal government business.
Maybe no one expects much proper conduct from state government anymore, but the mess at the colleges and universities system should embarrass someone in authority in state government — that is, some Democrat somewhere — even as it gives the Republican minority in the General Assembly more evidence for complaining that Connecticut’s smug political regime should be replaced.
Unfortunately the regime’s smugness is hardly noticed anymore even as it is on display in municipalities throughout the state. In the name of responding to inflation, municipal administrators, councils, and school boards are seeking big increases in spending and property taxes.
But the political presumption is that the burden of inflation and tax increases must fall on taxpayers alone even as municipal government employees are insulated against inflation by raises promised in their union contracts. Government employee salaries must not be reduced, only the salaries of taxpayers, who, having no contract with state or local government, may still believe naively that their elected officials represent them.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
Chris Powell column 