Walker: Not so fast.
New Haven State Rep. Toni Walker swung back Thursday against the Malloy administration over its efforts to weaken public watchdog agencies.
Walker, who co-chairs the legislature’s Appropriations Committee, issued a statement criticizing a stand state budget chief Ben Barnes took this week: the the Malloy administration has legal authority to cut the budgets of the State Elections Enforcement Commission, the Office of State Ethics and the Freedom of Information Commission.
The administration has fought with the legislature for years over efforts to cut back or eliminate those agencies. The legislature passed a law in 2004 barring governors from reducing those budgets of those agencies, which are designed as independent government watchdogs. Barnes argued this week that the 2017 state budget granted the governor the authority to withhold funding, as reported by the Associated Press’s Susan Haigh. The administration seeks to cut $180,000 to the short-staffed agencies.
“From Watergate to Rowland-gate, we are all too familiar with the willful destruction of the public’s trust by those in power. The watchdogs cannot face additional cuts outside of the budget process and do their jobs effectively,” Walker stated.
The elections commission has investigated the state Democratic Party’s alleged funnelling of contributions from state contractors to Gov. Malloy’s 2014 reelection campaign, now a subject of a federal criminal investigation.
Walker dubbed Barnes’ stance “totally inappropriate.”
A spokesman for Barnes, Chris McClure of the Office of Policy and Management (OPM), emailed this response to the Independent: “Rep. Walker, as well as her colleagues, specifically gave the Governor the authority to do holdbacks, including holdbacks to the watchdogs. She says in her press release that OPM is ‘rescinding budgeted funding,’ – but that simply isn’t correct. OPM is doing what the budget agreement requires- hold back funds from agencies to balance the budget. That holdback requirement was granted to OPM by the General Assembly, including Rep. Walker. We greatly value the work of our independent watchdogs, who we’ve historically had cooperation from when it comes to budget matters.”
Here is the letter Barnes wrote this week to the watchdog agencies’ heads informing them of pending cuts.
Reap What You Sow Notes: