-5/27/16
A&R began negotiating our successor contract several months ago.  Up to this point, negotiations achieved no progress.  The State proposed eliminating nearly every line in our contract (wiping out every benefit we have) and felt that it would only be fitting if they also proposed zero wage increases, no steps, and no top step bonus.  The nonsense has continued as we have met a half-dozen times with the same result of no progress and no sincere engagement by the State.  Although the State couldn't support any of their positions, the State refused to budge on the elimination of all

The Health Insurance Open Enrollment period continues through June 3, 2016.

This is the time of year to review your current health/dental insurance plan and make adjustments.  Other than "life" changes, the health plan you select will remain your plan until the next open enrollment period in 2017.  Please ensure that you are only covering qualified individuals on your health insurance, if a dependent or former spouse needs to be removed, please do so.

A copy of the Open Enrollment Fair Schedule.

2016 HEP Requirements

View your HEP Compliance (note: your password is now required to be 8 characters

Updated 5/18/16

AFT CT Legislative "Wrap-up"

Highlights of the Budget Implementer

The amended budget which was brought forth in a Special Session of the General Assembly passed in the Senate on a party line vote on 5/12.  The House passed the budget by a narrow 74-70 vote on 5/13.

Although the budget that passed is still a job-killing budget, this budget was somewhat different than the proposal that never made it to the floor during the regular session.  In particular, the budget that passed does NOT transfer all A&R Staff Attorneys to the AGs office as the original budget proposed.  This budget

5/11/16

Apparently leaders in the General Assembly were under the impression that SEBAC had taken a vote and rejected a concession offer from the Governor's Office.  This is not the case.  SEBAC has not been asked for any concessions.  The Governor's Office did tell SEBAC that they want 0% wage increases, layoffs, and changes to the SEBAC agreement - yet no request for concessions has been made.  However, this is not the message that the Governor's Office has given to legislative leaders.  SEBAC felt it necessary to send this open letter to the Legislators.

To be certain, the administration has

The Budget Proposal has finally been released.  This is the proposal that was negotiated by the Governor prior to the end of the legislative session (which ended 5/4/16) but was not brought to a vote in either chamber of the General Assembly.  This proposal is expected to be up for a vote in the Senate on Thursday 5/12 and it is not yet known if the House is willing to put this to a vote.

Highlights of this budget bill for State Employees:

 Reduces total personal services lines in numerous agencies by hundreds of millions of dollars, assuming between 4,000 and 5,000 staff reductions.
 Backs out

Twenty three hours before the legislative session ends,apparently the Governor and the Democratic leadership at the legislature reached a budget agreement.  We have not seen the agreement other than this condensed version.  The agreement is not yet in the form of a bill, however, it is expected that it will be voted on before midnight tonight (5/4/16).

Based on the large cuts to Personal Services, this budget could result in a 10% reduction in the State workforce (via retirements, attrition, and layoffs).  We have our work cut out for us.  We will try to get a better handle on this as more