Gov. Malloy’s Office Should Keep Hands Off Watchdog Funding

The Malloy administration risks unnecessary political damage by holding back badly needed money from state watchdog agencies. The administration should abide by the 2004 law that protects the funding of the good-government agencies from gubernatorial cuts.

The last administration to go after the funding of the State Elections Enforcement Commission, the Office of State Ethics and the Freedom of Information Commission with such vigor was Gov. John G. Rowland’s, while he was under investigation. So the legislature passed the law to insulate the agencies that keep government honest from gubernatorial cuts. The law says the governor “shall not reduce [their] allotment requisitions or allotments in force.”

The Malloy administration is withholding $183,000 from those agencies as part of the $69 million that the legislature asked it to cut from the state budget. No one in state government is immune from sacrifice, given the state’s dire financial straits. But the watchdogs have given a lot already, and they’re at the point now of becoming crippled. The Connecticut Mirror said that the State Elections Enforcement Commission “would be left with just $6,000 for the rest of the year for expenses other than personnel.” The budget and staff for the Office of State Ethics have been cut by nearly half since 2007.

Surely the administration can find other places to cut that $183,000.

The withholding comes as the Office of State Ethics is about to weigh in on whether the governor’s insurance commissioner should recuse herself on the Anthem-Cigna mega-merger and just a few months after the State Elections Enforcement Commission reached a record settlement with the Democratic Party over a complaint about fundraising on behalf of Gov. Malloy’s re-election.

Ben Barnes, secretary of policy and management, contends that the governor does have the legal authority to hold back funding and that the agencies aren’t being singled out. Nevertheless, he says that “we aim to work with them.” That’s good because otherwise, the administration is in danger of looking like it’s trying to quiet these bothersome watchdogs.