In her State of the State address, I expected Gov. M. Jodi Rell to offer constructive ways to balance the current year's operating budget. Instead, the focus of the speech was a proposal to create another state commission to look for efficiencies and reductions in bureaucracy.

Did the governor take one moment to examine laws already on the books? In 2007, the Contracting Standards Board was created and signed into law with bipartisan support. The law was supposed to help the state evaluate projects associated with contracting. If the panel was up and running, there would be an analysis of state contracting vs. in-house work on costly state projects.

Now that the General Assembly is in session again, I hope the governor and legislative leaders finalize appointments to this clean-contracting panel.

Stuart Mahler
West Hartford

The writer was appointed to the Contracting Standards Board by House Majority Leader Denise W. Merrill. He is a member of Council 400, CSEA/SEIU Local 2001.