CT Senate GOP Statement on Employee Union Urging Gov. to Scrap Pension $$$ Investment in CT Sun

Sen. Stephen Harding, Sen. Henri Martin, Sen. Ryan Fazio and Sen. Heather Somers issued the following statement regarding Connecticut’s largest state employee union urging Gov. Ned Lamont to abandon talks of investing state employee pension assets in the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun.

“When Republicans asked questions about using state employee retirement funds to invest in the Sun, Gov. Lamont said we were ‘booing from the sidelines’.

Is the state employees union ‘booing’ as well, governor?

Gov. Lamont said Republicans were ‘inserting politics’ into his ‘economic efforts’ and implied that Republicans don’t ‘care about’ Connecticut or the Sun.

Do you accuse the state employees union of this as well, governor?

Gov. Lamont: Republicans absolutely support efforts to keep the Connecticut Sun here in Connecticut. We also want to protect state employee retirement funds and taxpayers for the long term.

Republicans are actually the only ones making a specific proposal to protect the state:

Pass Senate Bill 1557 and create a professional state pension investment board to share responsibility for investing state employee retirement funds, rather than vesting all that legal power in one individual.

Currently, Connecticut is the only state that has a sole fiduciary as its elected state treasurer. It would be better for everyone to change that now, as it would give us all more confidence in state investment questions like this.”