Education ‘slush fund’ makes us all ridiculous

The partnership always has been ridiculous on its face because its $200 million has been appropriated without any firm idea of what is to be done with it.

Ordinarily Democrats in Connecticut rail against the “1 percent” and their excessive influence on the government. But the Democrats have made an exception for the state’s two richest residents, billionaires Ray and Barbara Dalio, who, by pledging a gift of $100 million, have induced Gov. Ned Lamont and the General Assembly to appropriate a matching $100 million in taxpayer money to create a $200 million educational slush fund, the Partnership for Connecticut.

Why are these 1-percenters getting such deference from the Democrats? Probably because most of the slush fund will end up with members of teacher unions, the Democratic Party’s army.

But the partnership is making everyone ridiculous.

First, last year the partnership was dishonestly exempted from Connecticut’s freedom-of-information and ethics laws. The exemption was enacted through a provision in the budget “implementer” bill that never got a public hearing so no one had to explain it.

Since then the governor and Barbara Dalio, both members of the partnership’s Board of Directors, have insisted that the partnership will be completely transparent even as they also have insisted on keeping the exemptions from the FOI and ethics laws. But complete transparency doesn’t need exemptions.

Despite this pledge of transparency, the partnership’s plan to hire a chief executive officer at a grotesque annual salary of $300,000 blindsided the legislators serving on the board. So did the partnership’s hiring of a Democratic consulting firm to do public relations.

From its inception the partnership gave no justification for its exemption from the FOI and ethics laws. But a few days ago Barbara Dalio offered one — and it was nonsensical. She said the partnership would need to discuss sensitive problems of disadvantaged students, including mental illness. But the FOI law doesn’t require discussing the sensitive problems of students by name, and nothing would be gained by doing so anyway. Indeed, legislative committees often hold public discussions of sensitive problems.

Even so, last week at a hearing on a bill proposed by state Sen. Mae Flexer, D-Killingly, to make the partnership comply with the FOI and ethics laws, Jan Hochadel, president of Connecticut’s second-largest teacher union, the American Federation of Teachers, spoke against it. As usual what calls itself public education wants money without accountability to the public.

The partnership always has been ridiculous on its face because its $200 million has been appropriated without any firm idea of what is to be done with it. The partnership’s objective is said to be to salvage the education of alienated students, but there is no plan for how to do that. Instead the Dalios and state government are just throwing money at a problem that has not even been officially quantified.

Such deference to the Dalios is crazy. First the legislature should have held hearings on the problem and possible solutions. The state Education Department should have been consulted. Then the legislature should have set policy by determining the solutions to be tried. Only then should any money have been appropriated.

Instead the problem has been assigned to a couple whose only credentials are their wealth and friendship with the governor, as if the governor and legislature are too busy rewriting school aid formulas, which have yet to make any difference in student performance.

The slush fund should be scrapped and the legislature should do its job.