Connecticut Post

Connecticut Post Auditors begin probe of Rell’s use of taxpayer-funded study By Ken Dixon STAFF WRITER Updated: 10/08/2009 HARTFORD -- State auditors on Thursday began investigating the role a University of Connecticut professor played in running a focus group and advising Gov. M. Jodi Rell on political positions that she later took, including a tough stance this year against new taxes. Robert G. Jaekle, of Stratford, one of Connecticut’s two auditors of public accounts, said that Thursday reports in The Day newspaper of New London on Professor Kenneth Dautrich’s role in Rell’s political strategy prompted the probe. “I’ve learned about this from a newspaper article,” Jaekle said in an interview. “That’s all I know. I anticipated concerns raised by people. I don’t know what the facts are. We’ve started reviewing this matter.” Rell’s budget office contracted Dautrich, a professor of public policy, for more than $220,000 to conduct a two-andone-half-year study of ways to make state government more efficient. But the newspaper quoted Dautrich, a former long-time UConn pollster, as admitting that he advised Rell on potentially popular positions with state voters. The advice Dautrich exchanged with Rell and M. Lisa Moody, the governor’s chief of staff, had potential value of thousands of dollars, though Rell didn’t claim it in her state campaign-finance filings. Connecticut law also prohibits state employees from using state resources for political purposes. Dautrich, in an interview Thursday evening, said the project, which is about halfway through and has spent $100,000, has created “important” research for the state and has already resulted in millions of dollars in savings.

He said that one of 200 recommendations was for the state program to divert unclaimed bottle deposits that for 30 years reverted to beer and soda distributors. Another was to reduce the state motor fleet by 1,000 vehicles. Both programs were adopted. Rell, in a statement Thursday afternoon from her Capitol office, said Dautrich’s duties for the state Office of Policy and Management were confined to preparing a two-year budget proposal. “I am very pleased with the work that Ken Dautrich did to define issues for reducing state spending, working with agency commissioners to identify areas where savings could be achieved, and providing insight and new ideas as we struggled -- and continue to struggle -with the most difficult budget situation in modern memory,” Rell said. “We worked very hard to ensure that the work he did and the questions he asked were policybased, dealing with budget, spending and taxing issues.” The Day reported Thursday, first in its print edition and later on its Web site, that Dautrich ran a focus group that reviewed the governor’s budget and policy outlines. “I don’t think opinion should drive decisions, but at a minimum should be taken into account and the governor should take the lead in shaping it,” Dautrich wrote in an e-mail to Moody in June 2008 that was among dozens reviewed by the newspaper. “A set of polls can be very useful in this regard.” Another Rell staff member, in an e-mail exchange with Dautrich, speculated on the relative popularity of Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, a potential Democratic challenger against the Republican governor.

“It’s important work,” Dautrich said, adding that the focus group cost $2,200 of the $100,000 spent interviewing state commissioners and others involved in public policy. But Democrats immediately charged Rell with using state resources for political purposes. Speaker of the House Christopher G. Donovan, D-Meriden, and Senate Majority Leader Martin M. Looney, DNew Haven, said in an afternoon news conference in the Capitol complex they were “disappointed” and “extremely concerned and disturbed” by the governor’s apparent tactic. “We’ve been trying to put a budget together and we’ve been looking for a partnership with the governor to try to deal with our severe economic downturn, and what we find difficult to swallow is that while we’re doing this and trying to figure out what’s best for the state the governor is employing a consultant to give her political advice on how to make decisions based on political advantage over the budget,” Donovan. Donovan said that officials have to find out how much of the taxpayer-funded $220,000 grant was diverted for political purposes. “It seems that at least these documents associated with the study should be accounted for and shared with the state of Connecticut,” Donovan said. “Why were there questions asked about Attorney General Blumenthal in this, because he’s not someone who has a specific role in the budget process?” Looney said. “That really does put it more in the context of an electoral campaign kind of poll.”