Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com • February 18, 2019 • Hartford Business Journal 21 GOVERNMENT INSIGHTS Full-time legislature? Maybe not, but lawmakers deserve a pay raise By Roy Occhiogrosso S hould Connecticut move to a full-time legislature? It's an issue being raised this legisla- tive session and has been debated off and on, somewhat civilly, for as long as I've been involved in politics, and probably much longer than that. Before we get into whether Con- necticut should do this or not, let's stipulate to a few things. First, we have a part-time citizen legislature in name only. Being a legislator is, and has been for some time, a year- round job. Second, legisla- tors don't make much money, especially given the num- ber of hours they put in. The average salary for a Connecticut legislator is $28,000 a year. Yes, most of them make a few thousand dollars more than that — through leadership positions mostly — but it's still not a lot of money. In fact, if legislators were being paid on an hourly rate that rate probably would be well below the minimum wage. In other words, they have a year-round job but aren't paid year-round wages. That structure greatly limits the number of people who can afford to run for a legislative seat. If you're re- ally wealthy, it doesn't matter; you can serve and probably not worry about having another job. But what if you're not wealthy? What if you need another job because you need the income? Well, then, if you want to serve and keep your other full-time job, you better have a really understanding employer. Why? Because during the last four- to-six weeks of the legislative session, give or take a week or two, you'll be spending almost all your time at the Capitol and the Legislative Office Build- ing, attending committee meetings and public hearings, meeting with constitu- ents, and, of course, voting on bills. The current structure also inherently produces what some people think are conflicts of interest. If you're a lawyer you'll end up voting on issues that affect the judicial branch of government, and you may end up voting on issues that di- rectly impact your specific practice area. If you're a teacher, you're voting on how much money to send cities and towns for their local public schools. If you work for a hospital, if you work for an insurance company, if you … well, you get the point. Are those conflicts of interest? I'm not sure. That's what the Office of State Ethics is for. But, because most legislators need another income, these situations are unavoidable. But what if we had a full-time legisla- ture, and we paid legislators something closer to a full-time salary — the way they do in, say, New York for example? It would certainly allow more people to serve, and it would eliminate the conflict- of-interest issue for most legislators. It would also be more intellectually honest. But would it be better? Opponents of doing this will point to New York, for example, and all the corruption that has occurred there, and use that as the rationale for their opposition. But that's not a valid reason, as there are plenty of full-time legislatures where corruption is not pandemic. My position: Let's keep the current legislative calendar. The General Assem- bly is in session for six months during odd-numbered years and three months during even-numbered years. That's plenty enough time for legislators to get the legislative piece of their jobs done. But for God's sake, let's pay these people commensurate with the amount of work they do, and the time they put in. We might just see a lot more people interested in running and serving. Roy Occhiogrosso is the managing director of Global Strategy Group in Hartford, a public relations and research firm. He also served as a senior advisor to former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. Roy Occhiogrosso OTHER VOICES Unintended consequences: Workplace mandates can also hurt workers By Eric Gjede I frequently hear from businesses that they simply cannot find skilled workers to replace their aging workforce. Many lament that we spend so much to educate our younger residents, only to lose nearly 40 percent of them to opportunities in other states. Every year, lawmakers propose a flurry of bills designed to be pro- worker, like the minimum wage increase, or other bills intended to attract young people, such as paid family and medical leave. However, if you step back and take a holistic view, many of the laws we enact os- tensibly to benefit workers turn out to have a negative impact on employees as well as employers. Increasing the minimum wage always polls well with voters, and it's likely legislation will be enacted this year that will eventually raise our state's minimum wage from $10.10 per hour to $15 per hour. While some workers will undoubt- edly benefit from a minimum-wage hike, many others will see reductions in hours and benefits, resulting in less take-home pay. Businesses will also likely be forced to increase the price of goods and services, mean- ing everyone will have less buying power. Automation of low-wage jobs is already happening and a rapid in- crease of the minimum wage will only accelerate it. A paid family and medical leave program also is proposed this year, providing up to 12 weeks of pay every year for employees who are out of the workplace dealing with their own or any one of an extended list of family members' illnesses. This proposal also is incredibly popular with voters when only those details are provided. To pay for that paid family and medical leave program, however, the state plans to automatically deduct at least 0.5 percent from workers' paychecks. One problem with this is that the numbers just don't add up. A person earning $52,000 a year, for example, would only contribute $260 annually into the fund yet would be eligible to take out $12,000 each year. So it's obvious the current proposal is woefully inadequate to keep the program solvent, all but guarantee- ing that contributions will need to be increased in the future. But that's not all. A state-mandated retirement plan is set to kick in this year, and Connecti- cut workers not eligible for an employ- er-sponsored plan will see their wages automatically reduced by 3 percent, with no pre-tax benefits as offered by private-sector plans. That same person making $52,000 a year will now also pay $1,560 annually into a state-run retirement plan. Myriad other bills are also being con- sidered, including more health insur- ance mandates and sweeping highway tolls, that will make living in Connecti- cut more expensive for everyone. While I have advocated at the state Capitol for years that we can't keep mak- ing it more expensive for businesses to be here, we also can't keep making it more expensive for workers to be here. Legislators need to stop increas- ing the size of government, especially since we can't even afford the state government we have now. We should not adopt feel-good programs for workers that require us to deduct money from their wages or force businesses to find labor savings through staff or schedule reductions. When businesses thrive, competi- tion for workers will drive higher wages and richer benefits. However, it is also true that we will only get the skilled workers we desperately need if we can show them that the state will not keep shrinking their paychecks to pay for government programs. Instead of creating across-the-board mandates and putting more pressure on the fragile, volatile small business economy, lawmakers should bring em- ployers — the state's job creators — to the table to be part of the solution. Eric Gjede is government affairs vice president for the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, the state's largest business association. Eric Gjede

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