State managers seek retroactive 5% raises, plus 3.5% hikes in next two years, claiming unfair

State managers seek retroactive 5% raises, plus 3.5% hikes in next two years, claiming unfair treatment by Gov. Lamont’s budget chief


State budget chief Melissa McCaw couldn’t have known she would start a movement last December when she quietly made special arrangements to give raises between 5% and 10% to 13 nonunion management employees in her agency, the Office of Policy and Management.

It took a while for her action to become news, in this column, on May 1. But since then, it’s grown into a cause for many among the more than 1,300 other nonunion managers spread throughout the executive branch of state government, who now are speaking out to say that McCaw’s boss, Gov. Ned Lamont, should give them fair and equal treatment.

“Tell the Gov: ALL Managerial State Employees Deserve a Raise,” says the heading on the webpage of Managerial and Exempt (M+E) Employees United, an association of nonunion managers who have begun rallying for support around the issue of what they see as McCaw’s selective generosity. “Outraged at this preferential treatment for some that excluded most? Then join us in taking action today.”

One recommended action was to write Lamont along the same lines of a letter that the M+E group’s president, Monika Nugent, and three of her fellow top officers sent to the governor on May 9, about a week after the story broke.

Read more: https://www.courant.com/politics/government-watch/hc-pol-lender-state-managers-pay-request-20210529-wcx4efjanvdbtcv7yh2hguswgu-story.html