Rell’s UConn Consulting Project Worth Investigating
October 18, 2009
Gov. M. Jodi Rell could
accomplish part of her stated goal
of streamlining state government
by firing the crew of advisers
who talked her into spending
more than $220,000 of taxpayer
money for work by a University of
Connecticut consultant.
The highly secret project —
unearthed through open-records
requests — turns out to be, in
part, partisan political research
that could help her re-election bid
if she decides to run for a second
full term.
The money to pay for advice
from polling expert and UConn
professor Ken Dautrich on how to
shape the governor’s message was
taken from a contingency account
— commonly called a “slush
fund” — in the state budget for
use by top elected officials. Mrs.
Rell has criticized the use of
contingency funds in the past, but
not this time. Whatever account
the money came from, it was
dead wrong to use even a dime
of public money for political
research.
If the idea for this misbegotten
project was hatched by advisers
on her payroll, she’d do well to
start the streamlining there: It was
terrible advice. If it was her idea,
for shame.
Sadly, Mrs. Rell insists that violations” of state campaign
nothing is wrong and that she’s financing laws by Mrs. Rell and
“proud” of the project. her campaign committee with
regard to Mr. Dautrich’s services.
But in the past few days, the roof Elections Enforcement should
has partly fallen in. mount an investigation.
For one thing, e-mail evidence It’s disappointing that a governor
contradicts her assertion that the who followed the disgraced
idea of conducting a publicly John G. Rowland into office
financed field poll was dropped promising that ethics would be
last year. The e-mail in question, her watchword has landed in this
between two UConn officials, kind of trouble.
suggests the poll idea was alive as
recently as late January. Copyright © 2009, The Hartford Courant
Further, the UConn project is
now the subject of at least two
investigations. One is an inquiry
by state Attorney General Richard
Blumenthal (a Democrat) and
the bipartisan auditors of public
accounts as to whether, Auditor
Kevin Johnston said, “state tax
dollars have been used for other
than strictly state purposes.”
The other is an inquiry by
UConn’s Office of Audit
Compliance and Ethics, which
university spokesman Michael
Kirk said is “examining the
research associated with this
project to determine if it may
have violated any aspect of
UConn’s code of ethics.”
On Tuesday, Democratic political
consultant Jonathan Pelto filed a
complaint with the State Elections
Enforcement Commission
charging “serious and significant