By CHRIS POWELL
Connecticut state government is a big place and there will always be problems in large workforces. The state’s executive department has around 50,000 employees, with more than 90% of them unionized and covered by contracts and state law that make them nearly impossible to discipline seriously, especially since their unions constitute the army of the majority political party.
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With journalism in sharp decline, state agencies now receive little day-to-day news coverage. Something in state employment has to get really extreme before it has a chance of coming to light. Of course elected officials like it that way.
But the other day something in state employment did get extreme, something involving a doctor in the Correction Department with an annual salary of $260,000, Francesco Lupis. There were many complaints about him from prisoners and they were investigated by the department’s ombudsman, DeVaughn Ward, who issued a report that was publicized last week by the Connecticut Mirror. The report exposed gross mismanagement.
It concluded that Lupis repeatedly compromised patient care; had been sued for deficient care in 27 lawsuits in federal court, one of them resulting in a settlement of $50,000; failed to meet certification requirements; and had been charged in an incident of domestic violence in which he was said to have threatened his son with an ax, for which the Correction Department required him to undergo counseling.
It gets worse. The report added that the department hired Lupis six years ago though he had been denied a medical license in Massachusetts because of professional misconduct and had surrendered his medical license in Florida without prosecution on condition that he would never again seek a license there.
According to the report, the department looked into complaints against Lupis but there is no record of corrective action. Perhaps most disturbing, it took investigation by the department’s ombudsman, essentially a representative of prisoners and their families, to establish the doctor’s shortcomings. The department itself failed its duty of ordinary management.
Remarkably, despite his $260,000 salary, Lupis is a member of New England Health Care Employees Union District 1199 and so disciplining him, much less getting rid of him for incompetence and lack of qualifications, may be a challenge far beyond the capacity of what calls itself management in state government. Indeed, predictably enough, the ombudsman’s report has caused the Correction Department to advance Lupis to the most coveted status in state employment: paid administrative leave.
If the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system, a swamp of misconduct, negligence, and incompetence, is any guide, Lupis’ paid administrative leave may continue for the rest of his life at a cost of $22,000 per month.
Governor Lamont’s campaign commercials say he’s an impatient guy. He wasn’t with the CSCU system and now not with the Correction Department either.
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No one is more righteous than high school students who skip school to protest the injustice of the moment — like the 50 or so New Haven and Hamden high school students who last week walked out of school to gather on the New Haven green to show support for the Cornell University student who says she was raped at a fraternity house two years ago when, drunk and stoned, she lost consciousness during what had begun as consensual sex with two men. There have been no arrests.
The Cornell incident was reported nationally more than a month ago, and several weekends elapsed before the New Haven and Hamden students staged their protest. But still they chose to protest on a Thursday, when taxpayers were paying for educational time.
Of course skipping school makes protests more enjoyable, especially since school administrators tend not to punish students for cheating taxpayers.
Some students said they were also concerned about the recent arrests of two New Haven school employees. But the cases are in court and protesting won’t change anything about them.
The world always needs improvement but young people shouldn’t pretend that they improve the world more by curtailing their education, and adults shouldn’t play along with such nonsense.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
