At a time of tight budgets, government officials say cuts and streaming efforts are an absolute must.
But when it comes to one proposal to merge five state advocacy agencies into a Commission on Citizen Advocacy and a second proposal that would eliminate the state Commission on Aging, representatives say the costs would outweigh any savings.
“At this point I”™m not sure what else we can do to be effective, other than be left alone,” said Teresa Younger, executive director of the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW), one of the independent state agencies Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has proposed to consolidate in his budget for the 2014 and 2015 fiscal years.
“We are one of the oldest, most effective commissions in the country,” Younger said. “We”™ve been at the forefront of what other states look at.”
Under the proposal, PCSW, along with the commissions for Asian Pacific American Affairs, African American Affairs, Children, and Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs would be consolidated into the Commission on Citizen Advocacy.
The move would save $800,000 annually and is one of five government streaming efforts aimed at saving $11.2 million over the two years covered by the biennial budget proposal currently being debated by the Connecticut General Assembly.
The Commission on Citizen Advocacy would have about 17 full-time positions, absorbing some ”” but not all ”” of the current employees of the five agencies in question.
Each of the five consolidated commissions, plus the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, which currently lacks its own advocacy commission, would have at least one representative on the new Commission on Citizen Advocacy.
“We”™re in a situation where the state is facing a budget shortfall and it is fair on the part of the state”™s function to look at which programs are the most essential and not being replicated,” said GianCarl Casa, undersecretary for legislative affairs at the Office of Policy and Management, which is the policy arm of the Malloy administration. “We think it will be fair to have a commission represent all these groups.”
Casa said there are several outside organizations and nonprofits that do similar work as the commissions and asserted the cuts would not come out as a loss to the state.
“While these functions may be valuable, it”™s something that has to be changed,” he said.
Details on how the commission”™s priorities would be set and the status of the commissions”™ unpaid citizen boards remain unclear.
Younger says PCSW plays a vital role in advocating on the behalf of women and on issues like gender wage disparity, which was highlighted by Malloy as a key issue that needs correcting in conjunction with his Jan. 23 visit to the Connecticut Women”™s Business Development Council headquarters in Stamford.
PCSW conducts legislative research, makes recommendations for state government and provides programming for community education and outreach. Four years ago, Younger”™s staff was cut in half and she said she doesn”™t believe the commission would still be effective with even fewer available resources.
“The research that we are able to provide to nonprofits and level of expertise that we”™re able to leverage outweighs the cost of commission,” Younger said.
Similarly, representatives of the Commission on Aging, which would be entirely eliminated under the Malloy budget proposal, say that without the commission, the work they do simply wouldn”™t get done.
In his proposal, Malloy calls for the creation of a state Department on Aging, which would merge the current Aging Services division of the state Department of Social Services (DSS) and the Office of the Long Term Care Ombudsman, also of DSS.
Officials argue the commission would be redundant with the creation of the state Department on Aging.
But Julia Evans Starr, executive director for the Commission on Aging, said functions such as the production of legislative research and recommendations ”” which are currently performed by the Commission on Aging staff ”” would not be absorbed by the new department.
“You would have to a pay consultant,” Starr said. “They (state officials) pay big money to do the work we do. Oftentimes you will get a study on anything aging related and they reference our work. I would imagine it”™s at a greater cost.”
In response, Casa said the legislators can rely on the Office of Legislative Research and that there are several outside organizations such as AARP that advocate on the behalf of the elderly.
“There”™s no way there”™s going to be a void,” he said.
