The budget passed by the House and Senate over the weekend hurts our students and our colleges. In President Ojakian's words, "Early Saturday morning the Connecticut General Assembly passed a budget that intends to cut approximately $93M from the CSCU system over the next two years. Funding for developmental education is completely eliminated, while the Roberta Willis scholarship fund is phased out...This amounts to an unprecedented denial of access and support to public higher education students in Connecticut." Read the full statement here.
The budget would also dismantle our fundamental collective bargaining rights by:
- Removing funding for cost-of-living increases for retired state employees;
- Unilaterally changing how pensions are calculated-- even for years already worked, and for all years through 2027;
- And increasing pension contributions for ALL state employees to 7%.
If this budget were passed into law, SEBAC would be forced to litigate and defend our contractual and contract rights.
The Governor has pledged to veto the budget, but the Yankee Institute is encouraging people to contact the Governor and ask him to sign the budget.
We are asking you to do two things:
- Please contact your legislators to demand restoration of funding to the Community Colleges and the Willis Scholarship. You can locate your legislators and view our template email by visiting this link.
- Please email Governor Malloy to ask him to stand by his pledge to veto this budget and to restore funding for CSCU and the Willis Scholarship in the budget compromise. You can email him here.