"Clean Contracting" for Connecticut

"Clean Contracting" for Connecticut

Putting Reform to Work for Our Members and the Public We Serve

P-4 Council Member Monique Burns Shared Concerns Over Highway and Rail Bridge Inspections with Channel 8's Viewers in 2008

Over two decades, our Union members repeatedly warned that the Rowland and Rell Administrations' failure to invest in the public workforce was putting the health and safety of our communities at risk. Critical shortages on transportation projects, environmental health protection, information technology, and law enforcement were being used to justify outsourcing vital services to profit-motivated private corporate interests.

Failure to reform the state's privatization policy was at the center of several high profile examples of corruption in contracting-out public services beginning in 2006. With strong Union backing, the General Assembly passed a "clean contracting" compromise bill in September 2007. When Governor M. Jodi Rell signed it into law, a new standard was set for protecting our families' health, safety, and tax dollars.

But when her Administration failed to make implementation of the new law a priority, members of our Union and our partners in the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) spoke out. After moving her to complete her appointments to the stronger State Contracting Standards Board (SCSB) the legislation created, we urged all elected leaders to fully support its mission of ensuring open and transparent contracting processes.

Now that the watchdog panel is attempting to exercise greater oversight, management in some public agencies and the special interests they are far too cozy with are resisting reform. But our members' advocacy paid-off when the Department of Transportation (DOT) was forced to reveal to the board that it was allowing taxpayers to spend twice as much for bridge safety inspections by private consultants.

The SCSB has since voted to require the agency to provide a complete accounting of the full cost of contracting-out these vital services. The move promises to further bust the myth of privatization that some politicians and elected officials stubbornly continue to perpetuate.