Last week I wrote about a Connecticut state employee who accused me of misrepresentation when I cited the 33% increase in state employees wages during Governor Lamont’s six years in office. He claimed to have received only 15%, which was wildly inaccurate. My column set the record straight.
This week, another state employee attacked me. While acknowledging the 33% six-year wage increase, he accused me of ignoring four years of zero increases surrounding the six years. This week’s accuser is a well-paid member of the faculty of UCONN Health; let’s call him “the professor.”
First, the only year this side of the six years is the current fiscal year, in which there are no zeros. Wage contracts have been reached with four union bargaining units; they all received 4.5% increases. Negotiations continue with more than 30 other units, with the expectation that they too will receive 4.5%.
That brings things down to three zeros, those preceding Lamont when his Democrat predecessor, former governor Dannel Malloy, imposed a three-year general wage freeze.
Yet, as I chided the professor, “You ignore the bonuses in lieu of wage increases under Malloy.” Malloy paid 42,000 state employees a $2,000 bonus in 2017, or about 2.7% of the average state employee salary at the time, as recorded by the state’s outside pension actuaries. Now, we are down to two zero years.
Fiscal 2018 and 2019 were zero years. Why not include them? Because of what happened during the Lamont years. As I pointed out to the professor, Lamont paid “bonuses on top of wages,” lavishing even more largesse upon state employees — far beyond 33%. I did not adjust the wage calculation upward for the bonuses, instead leaving them to offset the two Malloy zeros.
At the end of fiscal 2022 in the SEBAC 2022 labor agreement, Lamont awarded most state workers a $2,500 bonus that amounted to 3.1% of their then-average salary of about $81,200 as reported by the state’s actuaries. Add the 4.5% wage increase and the 3.1% bonus and you get 7.6%, right? Pretty sweet. This 3.1% bonus in 2022 offset one of the two remaining Malloy zeros.
Just weeks later in fiscal 2023, Lamont paid state workers a $1,000 bonus, adding a 1.2% bump to that year’s 4.5% wage increase.
How could a medical school professor miss such huge bonuses? Moreover, these bonuses were especially notable, because they were “pensionable!” When they retire, state employees will be able to add them to their wage base used to calculate their pensions. Really sweet.
The professor also ignored the one-time special COVID service payment that Lamont paid in fiscal 2023. In aggregate, Lamont paid $49 million to state employees deemed to have worked frontline jobs during COVID. This payment averaged about 1% across the whole workforce. This, combined with the $1,000 bonus, offsets the last remaining Malloy zero.
The professor, who conveniently overlooked the bonuses and the special COVID payment, accused me of “cherry-picking 6 years surrounded by four zero years.” Who’s cherry-picking?
So much for the professor, who can see wages, but not bonuses, etc.
Getting into this kind of detail (bonuses and COVID pay offsetting zero years going way back to Malloy’s era) can confuse the matter, leading everyone to miss the forest for the trees.
The forest, in the case Connecticut employee wages, is that they are incredibly generous. Already in 2023, they ranked 2nd highest among the 50 states. At the end of fiscal 2023, the state’s outside pension actuaries pegged average wages at $88,200 (the ranking had wages at $83,170, well above the national average of $65,875 in 2023). At the end of fiscal 2024, the pension actuaries recorded Connecticut employees’ average wages at $91,000. The actuaries report as of June 30, 2025 is overdue.
It is fair and accurate to say CT state employee wages have increased 33% under Lamont. They have indeed. With the widely expected seventh-year increase of 4.5%, the cumulative increase will be a whopping 39%. It is an outrage and painfully unfair that Connecticut taxpayers, who mostly make far less, should have to fund such largesse. It is irresponsible and unsustainable for a state that ranks dead last in most 50-state financial rankings to be funding such a gravy train.
I have been advocating for a two-year wage freeze for state employees. Frequently I have referenced Malloy’s “three zeros” (notwithstanding the professor’s accusations that I ignored them). I have been posing the pointed question “If Democrat Dannel Malloy could freeze wages, why can’t Democrat Lamont?”
Red Jahncke is a nationally recognized columnist, who writes about politics and policy. His columns appear in numerous national publications, such as The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, USA Today, The Hill, Issues & Insights and National Review as well as many Connecticut newspapers.