By Catherine Osten
The Yankee Institute wants us to believe that their “Sunlight Project” Web site posting the salaries of current and retired public servants and businesses connected with the state is an unbiased attempt to shed light on government waste.
But who are these unbiased folks?
In their own words, they are “Connecticut’s independent think tank dedicated to free markets, free enterprise and private sector solutions to public policy questions.”
In other words, these folks aren’t trying to shed light on state government, they’re shilling for private contractors seeking to profit on the public dime.
That explains why they highlight people like University of Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun, who no doubt offsets his salary with the revenue he generates, and ignore the many lower-wage workers like road maintainers and group home nursing assistants, who provide vital services we all depend on.
And is the Yankee Institute actually in support of disbanding the University of Connecticut’s men’s and women’s basketball programs because of the out-of-state travel costs when they make it to the finals? Surely they must recognize the value of popular and successful college sports teams to our state’s economy.
Also absent from their Web site are the many unsuccessful privatization ventures that have cost taxpayers millions, like the I-84 inspection debacle or the UConn 2000 construction fiasco. It’s why they leave out the vast majority of private sector “independent contractors” who are paid hundreds of dollars by the hour for work that can be done many times cheaper by in-house public service workers.
Painted a target
Disguising their promotion of private vendor contracts as unbiased research is bad enough. Worse, the Yankee Institute has painted a giant target on the backs of thousands of our state’s senior citizens.
By disclosing the pensions of retirees to the entire world, they’ve made it easy to identify the elderly and widows. Any scam artist looking to exploit this vulnerable population now has the perfect hit list available with a few clicks online. It’s disgraceful and it’s dangerous.
As an elected office-holder, I believe that transparency in government is actually a good thing, and I’m all for shining a light on the work that public service workers perform. In fact, I believe that many people aren’t aware of the depth and breadth of the vital public services provided until they really need them.
If the Yankee Institute really wants to talk about transparency, they should stop targeting vulnerable seniors and fully disclose the salaries, bonuses and benefits of their own corporate benefactors. Then the public would really see the sun shine.
Catherine Osten is a lieutenant with the Connecticut Department of Correction and is serving her second term as first selectman of Sprague. She is also the president of CSEA/SEIU Local 2001.