Yesterday, Senate and House Republican Leaders Stephen Harding Jr (R-Brookfield) and Vincent Candelora (R-North Branford) held a press conference in which they promoted legislation to audit the legislature’s earmarking process. Additionally, they again proposed the creation of a state Inspector General’s Office.

“We have a candy store in the state of Connecticut, like I’ve said before, and it’s open and it’s being used, and it’s become systemic,” said Harding Jr. “There’s a systemic problem with corruption in the state of Connecticut and something finally has to be done about it.”

Harding Jr. said that Republican lawmakers would be drafting legislation which would require non-profit organizations to come before the legislature’s Appropriations Committee to make formal requests for state funds. Organizations would have to provide outlines for their proposed use of the funds, and disclose any personal connections or conflict of interests any sitting legislator may have. 

“We think these are logical measures to avoid the corruption, unfortunately, that we’ve seen,” said Harding Jr. “We’re here today to close this candy store, to end the systemic corruption that we’ve seen here in Connecticut, and to implement measures that would bring transparency to the appropriation process, so the hard earned taxpayer money that is being sent to Hartford is being used wisely.”

Harding Jr. cited various recent examples of the misuse of taxpayer funds by state officials to highlight the perceived need for such legislation. He mentioned Kostas Diamantis, a former OPM official who was convicted on 21 counts of bribery, extortion, conspiracy and lying to federal officials last December. He and Candelora both noted the Governor’s initially dismissive attitude towards an audit that found former CSCU Chancellor Terrence Cheng to have expensed thousands of dollars for inappropriate purchases. He stepped down as Chancellor shortly after the news broke, but was never criminally charged or investigated.

Lastly, Harding Jr. pointed to the recent controversy surrounding the legislature’s provision of funding to questionable non-profit organizations, many of which are closely tied to legislators themselves. Sen. Doug McCrory (D-Hartford) has thus far received the most scrutiny on this front, having recently been made the subject of a Department of Justice inquiry for his alleged role in pushing hundreds of thousands of state grant dollars towards non-profits he was personally tied to.

Candelora said that their proposal should not be a foreign idea to Connecticut lawmakers, as similar systems were already put in place by past governors. He complimented former Gov. Jodi Rell, who served as the state’s governor from 2004 to 2011, for replacing the earmark process with a competitive grant process, one which was carried over by Gov. Dannel Malloy. Candelora said the state’s wasteful spending has been prompted by Gov. Ned Lamont’s recent relaxation surrounding use of the state’s surplus funds.

“What’s changed now is the influx of money that we’ve seen from the good fiscal policies that were supported by Republicans in 2017,” said Candlora. “That was supposed to be money that was generated to pay down debt and go back to the taxpayers. Instead, sadly, we have seen Democrats eating at the trough, taking this money, not just for programs that we may not support, but actually for personal gain of friends and families. It needs to stop.”

Harding and Candelora both stressed the fact that the money distributed to questionable non-profits could be used to help assist state residents during what Harding called an “affordability crisis.” Candelora said the issue could also be assuaged by the creation of a new Inspector General’s Office, which he said would operate as an “independent body that can investigate waste, fraud and abuse in the state of Connecticut.” Currently, the state’s OIG only has purview to investigate alleged abuses by law enforcement and correctional officers.

“We don’t want to wait for the FBI to come into Connecticut and do more grand jury investigations to keep this building honest,” said Candelora. “We think we need our Inspector General to do that before we end up in the newspapers with embarrassing stories and criminal court cases, one of which is going to be starting in April.”

This proposal has been made by Republican lawmakers numerous times in the past, with both Harding Jr and Candelora pushing such an office as recently as last session. Candelora said he had hoped that the creation of a State Oversight Committee in the legislature last session would “kind of serve that purpose,” but that he’s thus far been disappointed by it. 

“They have rebuffed and refused to address any of the audits that are coming out, time and again from our public auditors, citing wrongdoing, misappropriation of money, and year over year, misfeasance with taxpayer dollars goes ignored,” said Candelora.  “We had asked them to open up an inspection last fall, again, they refused to do so. So I think this system is broken.”

Candelora said that legislative oversight could not be properly provided by legislators themselves, given their incentive to act in a partisan manner. The proposed Inspector General, said Candelora, would be “non-partisan, selected in cooperation with the governor’s office and the legislature to appoint people to actually do the investigations of fraud, waste and abuse.” Candelora said that the state has set a bad precedent for the handling of embezzlement over the past decade, which has in turn only incentivized further abuse. He noted the state’s handling of the DMV scandal, in which a DMV employee was found to have profited off the seizure and sale of residents’ towed vehicles, as a reason for why the current system of prosecuting embezzlement does not work.

“The commissioner wanted to fire that individual,” said Candelora. “They submitted the information to the State’s Attorney’s Office. They refused to sign a warrant, nothing happened, and that is why we need an Inspector General, because if the government is going to look at this behavior as criminal, which I think it is, we at the very least should have a civil process in place to stop this activity and protect tax dollars.”

Candelora said that regardless of what Democrats’ appetite for these proposals are, Republicans will continue to propose them.

“Our proposals are not going to go away,” said Candelora. “We are going to propose them again and again and again, until we at least hear from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle and this governor that they are going to get serious about the fraud, corruption and abuse in the state of Connecticut.”

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