Powell: More 'public benefits' bunk; and the big liability machine of state government

By CHRIS POWELL

Hiding the costs of government social welfare programs in customer electric bills -- the long-running scandal of Connecticut’s "public benefits" charges -- is bad enough. But the other day Marc E. Fitch of the Yankee Institute’s Connecticut Inside Investigator disclosed that one "public benefits" charge has allowed the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to pay to have itself lobbied by groups purporting to represent poor people.

Something called the Nonprofit Accountability Group, based in Hartford, has been paid tens of thousands of dollars by PURA, money drawn from "public benefits" charges, to coordinate meetings involving utility rates, conduct outreach, and pay for transportation, child care, translation services, food, and even stipends for participants in its activities.

The money is paid through PURA’s Stakeholder Group Compensation Program, established by a state law enacted in 2023 to increase participation from "utility customers residing in an environmental justice community or receiving protection as hardship cases."

But why should poor people particularly be trained to participate in PURA rate cases? Hasn't the authority already discerned on its own that nearly everyone wants electricity bills to be lower? Doesn't Connecticut already have an Office of Consumer Counsel and an attorney general’s office, amply staffed, to argue for holding utility rates down?

And what about the conflict of interest the program creates for PURA? The agency is supposed to be an impartial judge in rate cases, balancing customer and utility company interests to achieve the public interest in adequate and efficient service and fair return on utility company investment. PURA can't be considered impartial in rate cases when it is financing one side.

The Stakeholder Group Compensation Program looks like another patronage make-work racket like those lately contrived by state Sen. Doug McCrory, D-Hartford, and his girlfriend, the racket's main beneficiary.

The Republican leader in the state House of Representatives, Rep. Vincent Candelora of North Branford, wants a legislative committee to investigate the Stakeholder Group Compensation Program. But since the consumer counsel and attorney general are already doing the work at issue, the program should just be repealed. That will reduce utility bills more than the program itself does.

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State government in Connecticut often seems like a big liability manufacturing machine, often getting sued over its negligence. The latest notable payout is $2.25 million to the family of visiting nurse Joyce Grayson, who was sexually assaulted and murdered in 2023 by paroled sex offender Michael Reese when she visited him at a halfway house in Willimantic to administer medication.

Reese probably never should have been at the halfway house. He had served 14 years in prison for stabbing and sexually assaulting a woman in New Haven in 2006, was released in 2020, and sent back to prison twice for violating his probation before being released again and murdering Grayson.

But Connecticut is the land of repeat offenders who are never put away for good until they kill or maim someone. So despite his probation violations Reese was released again with deadly results. In a plea bargain in August, Reese, 40, pleaded guilty and this time was sentenced to 50 years without probation or parole.

Grayson's family has complained about state government’s failure to provide security to visiting nurses treating dangerous people outside prison. But the bigger failure here was the failure of the criminal-justice system, which could have imprisoned Reese longer after he twice violated his probation.

Grayson's family sued state government, the visiting nurse company that employed her, and even the owner of the building occupied by the halfway house, and they appear to be sharing responsibility for paying the $2.25 million settlement. How much will be paid by state government isn't clear.

But in any case there is not likely to be any official attempt to calculate how much state government's failure to deal properly with repeat offenders is costing Connecticut in lives and property. For the highest objective of criminal justice in Connecticut often seems to be only to keep criminals out of prison, reducing prison expense instead of crime.

Chris Powell (CPowell@cox.net) has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. His other columns are here.