Lawmakers: Dalio education plan’s oversight needs transparency

A proposal that would dramatically weaken oversight of — and public access to — an initiative that will pump hundreds of millions of public and private funds into Connecticut schools has run afoul of state legislative leaders.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers told the CT Mirror last week that the oversight proposal crafted by representatives of hedgefund giant Ray Dalio’s philanthropic group has little chance of moving forward, though bipartisan support for the partnership remains strong.

At issue is a fivemember Executive Committee that would oversee most activities of the Partnership for Connecticut — an initiative to invest as much as $300 million into lowperforming schools over the next five years.

The committee, as proposed by representatives of Dalio Philanthropies, would exclude all of the elected state officials who are subject to Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Act.

Under this proposal, “all of the business could be done at the executive board level and the public, who pays millions of dollars for this, can’t get access,” said House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, RDerby, who first raised opposition to the proposal. “And these are not little things at stake.”

Dalio Philanthropies said the group is confident it still can craft a collaborative, transparent publicprivate partnership to bolster Connecticut’s impoverished school districts.

Ray Dalio and his wife, Barbara, pledged in April to contribute $100 million over the next five years to help Connecticut’s lowperforming districts, with the state committing to match the Dalio’s contribution with $100 million in taxpayers’ money. Both sides have agreed, through the partnership, to try to raise another $100 million in contributions from other private donors.

The Dalios already have funded initiatives to assist public school students in East Hartford, Meriden, New Haven and Hartford, earning praise from local education leaders, Lamont and legislators.

But Dalio Philanthropies also asked that the partnership be exempt from state disclosure rules, a request that was granted by Gov. Ned Lamont and the Democratcontrolled legislature.

Though the Dalios and Lamont promised frequent public reports, the partnership would decide which details were disclosed, and most deliberations and discussions of its 13member governing board would be private.

Things changed, though, on Aug. 7, when Attorney General William Tong issued a formal opinion in response to a query from Klarides.

Tong said that the five elected state officials on the partnership’s governing board — Lamont, Klarides, House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney, and Senate Minority Leader Len Fasano, remain subject to the Freedom of Information Act. If asked to provide documents related to partnership business, Tong said, those elected officials must disclose them.

Fasano said that the executive board proposal, which comes on the heels of the Tong opinion, was a disappointment.

It would have created a fivemember subcommittee of the full governing board — with no public officials on it. It also would have empowered that board to execute contracts, select vendors, evaluate the partnership’s CEO and set compensation, and perform any other duties set forth in the partnership charter.

Lamont, who joined the Dalios in proposing the partnership in April, would not serve on the Executive Committee, but two of his designees still would.

“It’s clear to me that the executive board, for all practical purposes, is the operational board the way they tried to set it up,” Fasano said, adding that would have reduced the full Board of Directors — and the legislators serving on it — to “window dressing.”

Fasano added that “it seems to me one of the purposes of this proposal must have been to avoid the AG’s opinion.”

But Dalio Philanthropies responded in a written statement that “We are confident we’re going to come to agreement on the design of the partnership’s operations. We are actively engaged in conversations with board directors about how to shape the partnership. We’re eager to do so collaboratively, transparently, and effectively because every day we don’t advance we are denying high school students and communities the chance to benefit from this unprecedented opportunity.”