Commissions survive budget cuts
When Gov. Dannel P. Malloy proposed to eliminate one of the state”™s advocacy agencies and consolidate the five others into the Commission on Citizen Advocacy he may have forgotten who he was dealing with””advocates.
Originally Malloy had proposed to consolidate the commissions in his budget proposal for the 2014 and 2015 fiscal years to save an estimated $800,000 annually. However the budget passed by legislators June 3 included full funding for each of the individual commissions, which include the Commission on Aging, the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW), the Commission on Children, and the commissions for Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs, African American Affairs and Asian Pacific American Affairs.
“How much the governor knows about our actual work, I don”™t think we could really say,” said Robert J. Norton, director of communications for the Commission on Aging. “But we work very closely with the legislature, they know firsthand what kind of work we do and how it supports them. It comes down to knowing the value of what we bring to the legislature and how important we are.”
As part of the legislative branch, each of the commissions is tasked with conducting legislative research, monitoring legislation, providing information and data to legislators, and then working with them as advisors and educators.
Under Malloy”™s proposal, each of the existing commissions”™ staffs would have been reduced to one or two representatives who ultimately would have had to compete with each other to determine the joint commission”™s priorities. Additionally, the Commission on Aging would have been eliminated entirely, as Malloy said it was a redundancy with the new state Department on Aging, which carries out administrated programs.
“I don”™t think any of the work we do would have happened,” said Julia Evans Starr, executive director of the Aging Commission. “I don”™t think they would have done the work and you wouldn”™t have gotten the same coordinated approach with one entity to look to, to bring it all together.”
In the upcoming year, the commission plans to continue its work on the Alzheimer”™s task force, livable communities initiative and efforts to rebalance the state”™s long-term health care options and develop a workforce large enough to care for the growing senior population.
Teresa Younger, executive director of PCSW, said she was also happy to see the women”™s commission continue to operate as a stand-alone agency. The commission has been charged with some of the state”™s biggest legislative issues, such as the gender pay equality, family and medical leave insurance, and sex trafficking.
More than 70 letters were sent to legislators in support of the commission and when 250 people attended the commission”™s Women Day event at the capitol, Younger said it was a powerful message to legislators about the significance of the PCSW.
“When you streamline something you have to make sure things are more effective,” Younger said. “And the commissions had already streamlined so many of their expenses that consolidating the commissions any more wasn”™t going to streamline any of their priorities. It really wasn”™t going to do anything.”