One state authority to help another

Lamont looks to airports to assist with ports

Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration has approached the Connecticut Airport Authority, which it sees as a model of how quasi-public agencies in the state should operate, to help out a similar agency that has faced trouble in recent months: the Connecticut

Port Authority.

Kevin Dillon, executive director of the airport authority, said the state has asked if the agency would consider taking on a role “where we’d provide best practices and potentially some administrative services through a management services agreement.”

The agency’s 11-member board of directors is in “very preliminary” discussions about taking on an advisory role to the port authority, Dillon said. Details have not been fleshed out at this point, and the board wants the state to clarify the scope of what would be required of the airport authority, he said.

Tony Sheridan, head of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut and chairman of the airport authority’s board, said members briefly discussed the issue in executive session at the board’s last meeting and will take up the request again early in the new year. He said the board agrees that “we will help out to the best of our ability.”

The governor’s office sees the airport authority as a successful quasi-public agency, given it is self-sufficient and has a reputation of success in both the private and public sectors, said Max Reiss, a spokesman for the governor’s office.

“We want to see the Connecticut Port Authority be as successful as possible. We want to put that quasi-public agency in a position for sustained success,” Reiss said. “So why not at least reach out to a quasi-public that has a record of success in both the public and private domains to see if they’d be willing to help.”

The port authority, which receives about $400,000 annually from the state, has been under the oversight of the Lamont administration since early August following several personnel shakeups and audits that show spending without proper documentation and poor financial management and practices.

That oversight, which involves the Office of Policy and Management taking a “direct and active role in the financial decisions and direction” of the port authority, is expected to last another six months, OPM Secretary Melissa McCaw said earlier this month at the second forum on the port authority convened by the General

Assembly’s Transportation Committee.

The port authority has been tasked with negotiating a deal with partners Danish offshore wind giant Ørsted and energy utility Eversource on an overhaul of State Pier in New London to create an assembly hub for offshore wind turbine components.

“Why not reach out to a quasi-public (agency) that has a record of success in both the public and private domains and see if they’d be willing to help.”

MAX REISS, SPOKESMAN FOR GOV. NED LAMONT