CT Senate GOP Statement on Police & Fire Union Urging ‘Timeout’ on CT Sun Deal

For Immediate Release 

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

“Now, we see a union which represents nearly 1000 police, fire and other public safety personnel telling Gov. Lamont to call a timeout on this risky deal.

It follows last week’s announcement by the largest state employee union urging Gov. Ned Lamont to abandon talks.

When Republicans questioned this deal involving state employee retirement money, Gov. Lamont said we were ‘booing from the sidelines’.

Are these police officers, fire fighters, security officers, and park maintainers now ‘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.

Does he now accuse the Connecticut Police and Fire Union of this as well?

Republicans will continue urging the governor to provide ‘sunlight’ with regard to the Sun deal.

Republicans continue to be 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.”