Connecticut House Republicans overwhelmingly opposed a new state police contract with raises for troopers during Monday’s Appropriations Committee meeting, despite years of professed concern about law enforcement recruitment and retention.
The legislature’s Democratic-controlled budgetary spending committee ultimately voted to approve the police contract deal negotiated by Gov. Ned Lamont’s office and the union representing troopers.
Prior to the vote, Emergency Services and Public Protection Commissioner Ronnell Higgins told the panel that State Police were competing for recruits with local departments.
“Most police departments in the state of Connecticut are hiring and those cities and towns have figured out that compensation is a way to attract qualified candidates,” Higgins said. “It is also a way to keep those candidates as well.”
Sen. Cathy Osten, a Sprague Democrat who co-chairs the appropriations panel, said Higgins’ testimony demonstrated “how much this contract is needed to get people to a level where they should be relative to salaries.”
Nevertheless, almost every House Republican on the committee voted against the contract just days after they floated the idea of suspending arbitration rights for state employees and unveiled a Republican budget proposal, which cancelled the police raises.
The Republican vote to take money from troopers and their families might seem especially jarring for observers who have followed previous statements from Republicans. GOP legislators argued during a press conference just last March that Connecticut was experiencing a police recruitment crisis as a result of accountability reforms passed by the state’s Democratic majority.
Those recruitment concerns must have evaporated over the past year because most House Republicans voted against the police contract.
It was unclear Monday how South Windsor Republican Rep. Tom Delnicki would have voted on the police contract. Prior to the vote, House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora asked that Delnicki be removed from the committee.
In a statement to the CT Post, Candelora denied that Delnicki’s removal from the committee had anything to do with the police contract.
“Representative Delnicki, who was serving on four committees, chose to step down from the Appropriations Committee—plain and simple,” Candelora said. “Any insinuation that he was forced off is categorically false and appears to be an attempt to stir controversy where none exists.”
