Donovan, D-Meriden, convened the Speaker’s Working Group on Small Business Health Care last year. He is running for Congress in the 5^th District.

Seven state representatives and two state senators, all Democrats, served on the working group with 16 volunteers. The report made eight recommendations, many of them representing causes Donovan has supported in the past.

The first recommendation is to “permit small businesses, including businesses of one, to purchase employee health insurance through the state employee plan.”

“This would permit small employers to take advantage of the state’s large risk pool, along with its bargaining power, low administrative costs and cost containment strategies.”

Many state employees reacted negatively to a similar plan, part of a group of proposals commonly called SustiNet, last year during a vote on the concession agreement negotiated by Gov. Dannel Malloy.

Malloy’s administration negotiated with, among others, Daniel Livingston, chief negotiator for the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition, and Salvatore Luciano, executive director of AFSCME Council 4, both of whom have a close relationship with the SustiNet proposals.

This closeness prompted concern among some state employees who wondered whether their negotiators represented them or SustiNet at the table with Malloy.

Livingston, a lawyer with Livingston, Adler, Pulda, Meiklejohn & Kelly in Hartford, is chairman of the board of the Connecticut Health Advancement and Research Trust. CHART is the parent of the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, the primary lobbyist for SustiNet.

Luciano served on the state’s SustiNet board, set up by the legislature to study and promote the SustiNet proposal. Council 4 and two other groups where Luciano is a board member have received Universal Health Care Foundation grants in the past.

Last year, Livingston accused the Yankee Institute, publisher of this website, of illegally misusing state computers in a letter to Attorney General George Jepsen. Livingston wrote his complaint one week after Raising Hale published an article about his characterization of the concession deal as the best in the country.

Jepsen found no evidence of wrongdoing.

The working group also suggests the creation of a “publicly administered health insurance plan” and promotion of non-profit insurers.

“The inclusion of a public, non-profit option both inside and outside of the exchange, would force insurers to trim profits, advertising budgets and expensive claim denial systems and create more value for the premium dollar,” the report said.

The group also suggested “pure” community rating for small group insurance “so that a small business’s premiums can no longer be adjusted based on the age, gender or similar demographics of the group.”

According to the working group, Vermont and New York currently require community rating for small groups.

“In essence, this change would aggregate risk across the whole book of business so that costs would be spread equally across the covered lives, averaging higher cost groups and lower cost groups. This means that premiums will no longer rise just because employees grow older. This system removes a disincentive on small employers to hire older, more skilled workers.”

The working group also recommended:

• Increased transparency in health care costs
• Requiring companies to insure association groups
• Mandated reporting of an insurance policy’s actuarial value
• A merger of individual and small group markets
• Offering a Basic Health Program “in order to lower costs for small businesses in the exchange.”

Rep. Robert Megna chaired the working group. He was joined by Reps. James Albis, Susan Johnson, David Kiner, Betsy Ritter, Robert Sanchez and Ezequiel Santiago. Sens. Joseph Crisco and Terry Gerratana also participated.

The volunteer members of the group are: Charles Beyer, Beyer Precision, LLC; Michael V. Brown, New Standard Institute; Richard Carbray, Apex Pharmacy; Brenda Cerezo, Cerezo New Image Salon; Jennifer Clark, Realtor, First Choice Realty; Attorney Chris Donohue, Riefberg, Smart, Donohue and NeJame, PC; Kevin Galvin, Connecticut Commercial Maintenance; Jerry Hardison, West End Eye Care; Carolyn Malon, Family Dental Care of Farmington; Séan Moore, Greater Meriden Chamber of Commerce; John Pakutka, Cresent Group Consulting; John Seiffer, Better CEO; Linda St. Peter, Realtor; Angel Reyes, Check Cashing and More; Lesley Waldron, IPS Limited & IPS Physician Services; and Cornell Wright, Parker Wright Group.

Connecticut earned four out of seven points for “content and rigor” and 1.8 out of three for “clarity and specificity.” The Thomas B. Fordham Institute issued the report, reiterating the C grade it gave the state in its 2005 report.

“The Connecticut science standards are generally well written, with but a few scientific errors or badly phrased statements,” the report says. “Unfortunately, a significant amount of important material is missing, preventing the Constitution State from earning top marks across the board.”

Connecticut’s grade ties it with 10 other states. Twelve states and the District of Columbia received a grade above C.

Massachusetts received an A- and New York a B+ while New Jersey and Rhode Island got a D.

“It’s no secret what good science standards look like,” said Chester Finn Jr., president of the Fordham Institute. “It’s a blight upon the United States, however, that such standards are guiding the schools and teachers in so few places today.”

Connecticut policies showed some improvement from last year when the state received a C- from ALEC, a national organization for conservative state lawmakers.

In 2010, Connecticut ranked 29^th in educating low-income students.

The state performed best in home school regulations (A) and worst in teacher quality and policies (D+).

The teacher quality grade includes five subcategories: expanding the teaching pool (B-), delivering well-prepared teachers (C), exiting ineffective teachers (C-), identifying effective teachers (D+) and retaining effective teachers (F).

ALEC also gave the state a C for academic standards and a D for its charter school law.

According to ALEC, the schools in Connecticut spent $16,530 per student, the sixth-highest amount in the country, while the state ranks first and second in performance in two test-score categories.

The state also received credit for having an online-learning initiative.

Connecticut places 39^th in its performance educating low-income students.

The report cites census bureau data showing Connecticut’s per capita income, the highest in the nation, is 88 percent higher than Mississippi’s, the country’s lowest.

In Connecticut, 27 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, while in Mississippi 68 percent of students qualify.

“When ranking states’ academic performance, we ought not to simply congratulate Connecticut schools for the good fortune of having relatively wealthy student bodies,” the report says. “Nor should we castigate Mississippi schools for the poverty levels of their students. Instead, our rankings seek to make as much of an ‘apples to apples’ comparison as possible by grading states based on similar students.”

According to documents released last year when the concession package was first negotiated, the state expected to contribute $42.4 billion to the State Employee Retirement System over the next 20 years.

According to the administration, the agreement would save the state $8.3 billion or about 19.6 percent over that period.

Based on the 2011 actuarial valuation, the state instead saved $3.5 billion or 8.3 percent over 20 years. (View the data here.)

Spokesmen for Malloy and OPM did not respond to requests for comment.

House Minority Leader Larry Cafero, R-Norwalk, said the legislature asked Malloy last year to show how he would reach the savings targets in the negotiated agreement.

“We still do not have that verification,” Cafero said.

“If we are not armed with that information, we cannot do anything about it,” he said. “That would be the greatest sin of all.”

Previously, the short-term savings on state health care benefits did not match projections and the Office of Fiscal Analysis reported Wednesday the state is on track for a deficit because of these and other missed savings targets. Moody’s recently downgraded Connecticut’s bond rating and cited pension costs as one reason for its decision.

At the time the deal was made, the top union negotiator said it was the best in the country. He later accused the Yankee Institute, publisher of this website, of illegally misusing state computers in a letter to Attorney General George Jepsen, who found no evidence of wrongdoing.

The pension savings caused by the SEBAC agreement are probably less than $3.5 billion because the actuarial valuation also takes into account a 20.75 percent return on pension-fund investments in the last fiscal year. Part of this outsized return – the state only expects to earn 8.25 percent a year – went toward reducing future payments.

Malloy’s proposal Monday to change the schedule of pension funding reduces the 20-year total contribution by another $5.8 billion, for a total reduction of $9.3 billion or $1 billion more than originally expected from the SEBAC agreement.

The proposal also has the advantage of avoiding massive payments that would be needed two decades from now under the current plan.

In calculating how much the state would save over 20 years, the administration last year gave a dollar today the same value as a dollar 20 years from now. However, based on the 8.25 percent discount rate used by SERS, saving a dollar 20 years from now is worth only 18 cents today.

Discounted this way, administration projections showed the concession agreement saving 18.2 percent. The actuaries found the savings were only 9.5 percent.

Malloy’s proposal this week increases the savings by only .8 percentage points, for total savings of 10.3 percent. In other words, when discounted at the state rate, the new plan falls 7.9 percentage points short of the original projections.

The savings projected last year amounted to $3 billion on total spending of $16.7 billion when discounted at 8.25 percent a year, while the after the new proposal the savings are projected to be only $1.7 billion.

Financial economists criticize the discount rates used by SERS and other pension funds as too high. Using a lower discount rate, say 4 percent, the savings under Malloy’s new proposal are closer to the original SEBAC projections.

On 20-year spending of $26.3 billion the original projections would save $5 billion or 18.9 percent. The real savings of the SEBAC agreement amounted to 9 percent. Under the new plan, the state will save about 16.3 percent.

Republican Sen. Andrew Roraback of Goshen proposed a separate set of pension reforms Tuesday that would save an unspecified amount of money.

Roraback is a candidate for U.S. Congress in Connecticut’s Fifth District.

Last year, actuaries working for the Malloy administration and his Office of Policy and Management provided savings estimates for six proposed changes to the pension plan.

However, it appears the administration added all of these savings without taking into account how one saving changes another.

For example, if a shopper uses a 10-percent-off coupon and a buy-one-get-one-free coupon on the same purchase, the savings from both coupons is less than the sum of what each coupon would have saved by itself.

In the same way, creating a new tier of pension recipients with reduced benefits reduces the value of, for example, changing the early retirement penalty.

Update: Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, said last night, “After passing the largest tax increase in state history, Democrats have still managed to spend us into deficit. Among other things, today’s projections confirm that the labor deal Governor Malloy cut with state employee unions will not yield the savings he promised taxpayers.”

According to McKinney, up to $41.7 million of additional savings recently proposed by Malloy have already been counted.

Maturo received a pension for $40,113 in 2009, according to CTSunlight.

The previous mayor earned a salary of $75,000 in 2009, according to a press release.

“I am making no comment to the press” until a press conference later today, Maturo said Wednesday.

Brenda Halpin, director of the state’s retirement services division, told the commission Jan. 12 a person receiving a disability pension from the Municipal Employee Retirement System “was sworn in as the Mayor of East Haven” in November, according to the meeting minutes.

“At that time we provided him with a letter advising him that it was necessary to terminate his disability retirement benefit effective November 30, 2011 related to two provisions for MERS,” Halpin said. “First, under the rehired retiree provisions and second under the disability retirement provisions that to be eligible for a disability retirement you must continue to remain disabled.”

“The member is appealing the decision to terminate his disability retirement benefits,” she said.

According to Maturo’s campaign biography, he served as an East Haven firefighter for almost two decades.

“After 17 years of devoted service to a job he loved, Maturo was compelled to resign because of a work-related injury,” the biography says. “He has been a member of the East Haven Volunteer Fire Company since 1978.”

Maturo also served as mayor from 1997 to 2007 and as the chief administrative officer of Connecticut’s Police Officer Standards and Training Council, according to his biography.

Since 2007, the state has pledged to match one quarter of all donations to the UConn Foundation endowment. This commitment is in place until 2014.

Between 1999 and 2006, the state matched half of all contributions to the endowment.

Although the state budgeted no money to meet this commitment in the current fiscal year or the previous one, the state’s obligation “shall be carried forward and be eligible for a matching state grant in any succeeding fiscal year” through 2014, according to state statutes.

As of June 30, 2011, the state’s cumulative obligation is $18 million, according to the UConn Foundation’s financial statements.

UConn, which received $233 million in state funding, also paid the foundation $8.5 million in fiscal year 2011. During the previous year, the foundation received $9.1 million in contractual payments from UConn, plus a special $2.5 million payment for a new IT fundraising system.

Malloy will attend the meeting from Jan. 25 to 29.

“Throughout my first year in office, I’ve taken every opportunity to send the message that Connecticut is open for business,” Malloy said.  “I can’t imagine a better opportunity to share that sentiment with leaders from around the world than at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.  It’s a real honor, and I am proud that I will get to represent the people of Connecticut at such an important event.”

H. Peter Young, a FERC adminsitrative law judge, said Connecticut's lawyers "failed in the extreme" to prove their case.

Connecticut’s Attorney General and utility regulators paid lawyers – who “failed in the extreme” according to one federal judge – almost $4.6 million to challenge payments to three New York energy companies.

The state began the appeal process last year despite the wholesale rejection of their legal arguments by the judge and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Through their electric bills, customers already paid the $4.6 million in legal fees, plus about $17 million of the $65 million in payments questioned by Connecticut officials.

An administrative law judge filed an initial ruling Sept. 29, 2010, and FERC affirmed that ruling May 6, 2011. The state filed a request for rehearing – a necessary procedural step before an appeal can be filed – on June 6, 2011, which the commission denied Jan. 9.

“We’re reviewing the decision and will make a determination about whether to take further action after we have completed our review,” a spokesman for Attorney General George Jepsen said.

The state has until March 9 to file an appeal with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The state paid for more than the equivalent of 6.5 years of full-time work by attorneys and paralegals at an average cost of $336 an hour.

Connecticut – and, in turn, electricity customers in the state – also paid for 244,266 copies at 10 cents apiece and $120,117.33 for consultants and experts costing as much as $325 an hour.

The billable hours from the law firm Kaye Scholer make up the bulk of the costs, $4.4 million of nearly $4.6 million spent. Partners at the firm, including Randall Speck and Jeffery Tomasevich, cost as much as $550 an hour.

In 2010, Kaye Scholer billed the state for 7,747.1 hours totaling $2.6 million.

Eight attorneys billed for more than $100,000 that year: David Cousineau ($488,372.50), Joshua Holt ($378,140), Alexa Hahn ($328,930), Kimberly Frank ($293,984), Amanda Butler ($292,285), Rebecca Grunfeld ($288,637), Speck ($206,072) and Karen Robinson ($134,867.50).

In May 2010, the state paid Kaye Scholer for the equivalent of 12 full-time employees working on the case. In that month, five attorneys billed more than the 160 hours most people work in a month. Cousineau averaged about 14 billable hours per day that month, while Frank and Grunfeld averaged 12 hours a day. Butler and Hahn averaged 11 hours a day in May.

These costs do not account for work done by lawyers and experts who work for the State, including the Office of the Attorney General, the Office of Consumer Counsel and the Department of Public Utility Control or its successor, the Public Utility Regulatory Authority.

The state signed a contract with Spiegel & McDiarmid to provide lower-cost outside counsel for future FERC proceedings in October 2010. The contract specifies rates of up to $410 per hour, with several attorneys making less.

A new contract with Kaye Scholer, entered into on the same day, sets Speck’s rate at $495 per hour, with first-year associates making $205 an hour and paralegals $110.

Spiegel & McDiarmid’s rates specify $165 to $195 for junior level associates and between $90 and $140 for paralegals.

According to Jepsen’s spokesman, it is possible that the state could recoup its legal costs if the complaint is successful.

“We continue to pursue this appeal because we believe that FERC got it seriously wrong, to the detriment of Connecticut ratepayers, and we want this wrong corrected,” said a spokesman for Jepsen. “In this case, several out-of-state entities accepted $65 million in ratepayer funds to provide capacity services they admit they never intended to honor.”

“The request for rehearing in this matter was prepared entirely by staff attorneys in this office without any outside counsel, and we expect that any further challenge will be pursued on the same basis,” the spokesman said. “There are therefore no incremental legal costs being expended to pursue this.”

The Complaint

Former Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the Office of Consumer Counsel and the Department of Public Utility Control filed the complaint, which resembles a lawsuit, with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in 2009.

Blumenthal, now a U.S. Senator, did not respond to a request for comment through his office.

According to Jepsen’s office, three New York energy companies received $65 million in payments without providing anything of value.

The three companies are Brookfield Energy Marketing Inc. (BEMI), Constellation Energy Commodities Group and Shell Energy North America.

BEMI declined to comment. Constellation and Shell did not respond to requests for comment.

Between December 2006 and June 2010, utilities throughout New England made about $5.5 billion in payments to generators in the forward capacity market, which pays power plants for being available regardless of whether they are needed to generate electricity.

The goal of the capacity market is to ensure utilities will have enough electricity when demand is above average, like hot summer days when many turn on their air conditioning.

Independent System Operator New England, the nonprofit that runs New England’s electrical grid, explains capacity markets this way: “In wholesale electricity markets, the capacity market acts as an insurance policy, making certain that the region will have the resources needed to meet future electricity demand.”

In return for capacity payments, generators promise to provide the energy when called on by ISO New England.

If a generator receiving capacity payments fails to sell energy when called upon by ISO New England, FERC would investigate and could issue fines.

The $65 million in payments questioned by the Connecticut complaint represent about 1.2 percent of the total capacity market.

If the payments were illegitimate, all New England states could be entitled to a refund. Connecticut utilities pay about 26 percent of capacity costs, according to ISO New England, so its share of a refund would be about $16.9 million.

How it began

Connecticut’s complaint originated from a March 2009 ISO New England report that certain capacity importers had violated market rules by failing to provide energy when called upon.

ISO New England amended its filings with FERC to reflect that it based those allegations on incomplete and preliminary data. Actual transaction histories show ISO New England never called on the companies.

“We sincerely regret this error and are working to change our internal review process to reduce the likelihood of a reoccurrence,” said Gordon van Welie, ISO-NE president and CEO. “Fulfilling New England’s electricity needs and maintaining reliability were never at issue.”

In response to Connecticut’s complaint to FERC, ISO New England announced on April 21, 2009, it would file an explanation of how market rules were not broken.

“Data concerning energy delivery from these transactions was not fully understood by the ISO and led to unintentionally misleading statements in ISO’s earlier filing that suppliers had received $85 million and never delivered energy during 108 hours,” an ISO New England spokesman said.

According to the ISO New England statement, one software tool showed there was a possibility of needing to import energy from New York during these 108 hours. This software showed a forecast of electricity needs, rather than actual requests.

When it came time to call on electricity for those 108 hours, “less expensive energy was available within New England to meet the region’s needs.”

In March 2009, ISO New England began seeking a rule change through FERC that would require capacity importers to offer their electricity at competitive prices “based on historical and current market prices.” The new rules became effective July 1, 2009.

“The Commission’s approval of the market rule changes proposed by the ISO and stakeholders underscores the merits of these revisions,” said Raymond Hepper, vice president and general counsel of ISO New England. “With these market rule changes, New England can now derive more value from these capacity resources.”

Under the new rules, capacity importers will lose part of their monthly capacity payment if their offer to sell electricity rises above a price benchmark. Capacity importers that fail to deliver when called would also face increased financial penalties.

The judgment

Administrative law judge H. Peter Young, who presided over the complaint and issued an initial decision in October 2010, said Connecticut’s lawyers “failed in the extreme” to prove their case – a phrase he used twice in his written opinion.

The FERC commissioners unanimously approved a final decision based on Young’s initial ruling, finding Connecticut’s lawyers “failed to support their allegations of market manipulation.”

Young, one of 15 administrative law judges at FERC, incidentally has Connecticut ties. He graduated from Connecticut College (B.A., B.S., 1983), Yale University (M.S., 1984) and the University of Connecticut School of Law (J.D., 1987).

He said Connecticut failed despite the extensive leeway he and the commission granted the state and its lawyers.

Connecticut improperly filed its initial complaint with FERC, citing the wrong section of the relevant federal law. FERC reclassified the filing on its own and allowed the allegations to proceed “as if they had been properly filed.”

Young’s concessions to Kaye Scholer included “multiple extensions” and the ability to review “a massive volume of transaction data from respondents and ISO New England.”

One company, BEMI, had to pay up to 10 bilingual contract attorneys to review documents written in French.

Young gave Connecticut’s lawyers the “extraordinary accommodation” of allowing them to make lists of search terms for the three companies to use when searching their transaction data.

FERC’s own enforcement litigation staff supported the arguments made by the three companies accused by Connecticut. According to Young, the enforcement litigation staff was the only participant in the case “with no vested interest in the outcome.”

FERC staff argued that “having the motive and opportunity to limit risk and maximize profit” is not market manipulation.

The staff also argued Kaye Scholer based Connecticut’s case on “alleged violations of non-existent Tariff obligations” even though a violation of a tariff – a FERC rule – does not imply market manipulation.

Young explained in his ruling that Connecticut’s lawyers had to meet a “preponderance of the evidence” standard for him to rule in their favor.

“This standard requires the complainant’s evidence to outweigh and otherwise be more convincing than the evidence submitted in rebuttal,” Young said.

He said Connecticut’s argument wouldn’t even meet a lower standard. He found the arguments “fall so short of this measure on every material issue of fact and law that their case would not satisfy even a ‘substantial evidence’ standard of proof – i.e. they do not present evidence a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support their market manipulation allegations.”

“Despite being afforded every possible opportunity to prove their case – by the Commission as well as the presiding judge – and despite being granted extraordinary latitude to secure the evidence they insisted would demonstrate that respondents manipulated the New England capacity markets in violation of FPA section 222(a) and section 1c.2 of the Commission’s regulations, I find and conclude Connecticut Representatives have failed in the extreme to prove their allegations against any respondent here,” Young wrote in his decision.

The argument

Connecticut made a two-part argument in the complaint. First, the state’s lawyers argued the New York companies were incapable of providing electricity in New England despite having sold capacity to the region. Second, Kaye Scholer and the state’s sole witness argued the companies had an unwritten obligation to make “reasonable” offers to sell electricity.

The first argument centered on timing.

The three companies used placeholder bids in the New York and New England energy markets. In the New York market, they set their bids to buy electricity near the lowest allowable amount – so low that the bids were sometimes negative, meaning a seller would have to pay the companies for taking electricity off their hands.

In the New England market, the companies offered to sell electricity near the $1,000 per megawatt hour cap.

Connecticut’s lawyers argued that since New York energy markets close 15 minutes before New England markets, the companies could not change their New York offers in time to meet their obligations in New England.

The companies claimed ISO New England typically provided advanced notice to generators and the New York Independent System Operator could manually intervene to change bids, if necessary.

In the request for rehearing, Connecticut’s lawyers – this time state employees, instead of expensive D.C.-based outside counsel – argued the FERC decision is inconsistent. According to the request, FERC ruled against Connecticut because its argument was based on rules not found in the tariff, but supported the argument by the three companies that they NYISO could have manually intervened – a procedure that isn’t in the tariff.

Constellation told FERC it removed the capacity it sold to New England from the New York market. According to the company, this arrangement would have allowed it to send electricity from three New York nuclear power plants to New England.

Even while the companies bid their capacity-backed energy at extreme prices, BEMI, Constellation and Shell did sell electricity – unrelated to their capacity contracts – to ISO New England during this period. The companies made these sales at prevailing market prices.

Energy-only sales have more flexibility, according to Shell.

According to the companies, these sales undermined Connecticut’s claim they would not be able sell power to New England if called upon.

“This reasoning fails on a number of grounds,” Young said. Since “none of respondents ever failed to deliver energy,” Connecticut’s claim the companies were unable to respond “has absolutely no factual support either” (emphasis in original).

“It is pure conjecture,” Young said.

Connecticut’s lawyers also argued capacity importers had to make reasonable offers to sell electricity. The companies – with agreement from ISO New England and FERC staff – claimed the only requirement was to offer electricity for less than $1,000 per megawatt hour, a cap written into the rules governing the capacity market.

In the request for rehearing, Connecticut argued capacity enhances competition, but customers lost those benefits because of the bidding practices of these companies.

BEMI, one of the companies, claims the argument Kaye Scholer made on behalf of Connecticut – that capacity sellers are required to make a “reasonable” offer – is “an after-the-fact attempt to lend continuing legitimacy to market manipulation claims which turned out to be premised on inaccurate information.”

According to BEMI, PURA chief of utility regulation Steven Cadwallader, the state’s only witness, “concocted” this argument.

Constellation argued Connecticut was “compelled to fabricate” requirements to justify “otherwise unsupportable market manipulation claims.”

According to Constellation, ISO New England only asked about buying capacity-backed electricity from the company on two dates – Sept. 8, 2007, and June 29, 2009 – but the company did not have a capacity contract with ISO New England on either date.

ISO New England did fine Constellation twice for violations unrelated to Connecticut’s complaint. In July 2006 ISO-NE fined Constellation $43,063 for scheduling violations. ISO New England fined the company again in November 2007 “for failing to properly enter certain transaction data,” this time for $340,000.

The company argued these fines show ISO New England is not timid when exercising control over energy markets.

Rule changes

“After discovering how these entities had gamed the market rules, ISO New England and FERC quickly revised the market rules to prevent such conduct going forward.  FERC incorrectly refused, however, to sanction the generators for their conduct,” a spokesman for Jepsen said.

The three companies accused in the complaint take the opposite view, that the new rules prove there was no rule to violate before it was instituted.

Young agreed with the companies. He said the new requirement – as of July 1, 2009 – that companies make a “competitive” offer undermines Connecticut’s argument that the rule existed before the change.

“It is implausible to argue by implication – as Connecticut Representatives do – that ISO New England (i) did not fully understand its own Tariff or (ii) proposed what amounted to a redundant Tariff supplement,” Young wrote.

Motive

In order to prove market manipulation, Connecticut needed to show the companies acted with “specific deceitful or fraudulent intent or recklessness.”

Young found none of the companies met this requirement. He found “there is absolutely no evidence” any of the companies misrepresented or omitted information they were required to provide. He also found none of them engaged in deception.

“I also observe the circumstances that BEMI, Constellation and Shell may have ‘consciously’ ‘intended’ to formulate and pursue offer/bid ‘schemes’ that satisfied their Tariff capacity obligations and earned them capacity payments while minimizing the attending economic risks simply constitute a pattern of rational economic behavior if the ‘scare quote’ descriptors are construed in accordance with their non-pejorative meanings,” Young said.

“BEMI, Constellation and Shell therefore in no way impaired, obstructed or defeated ISO-New England’s well-functioning markets,” he said.

Young said all market manipulation allegations made by Connecticut “shall be deemed meritless and shall be dismissed with prejudice.”

The commission ruled all three companies acted properly and did not manipulate the market.

“There is a dearth of evidence to the contrary,” the commission said.

Going into the budget debate, Connecticut faced a $3.5 billion deficit – give or take. Newly-elected Gov. Dannel Malloy swiftly brought the Democratic majorities in the legislature into agreement on a budget that included a $1.9 billion tax increase, the largest in Connecticut’s history.

Malloy proposed a $3.6 million savings target for the General Assembly. Although Malloy could not allocate how the separate branch of government spent the money, he suggested some consolidation for the six legislative commissions, including the Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission.

The other legislative commissions focus on Asian- and Pacific-American affairs, African-American affairs, aging, children and the status of women.

Meanwhile, the LPRAC had put out a 52-page request for proposals to host a golf tournament. The plan: use some of the private donations in the commission’s scholarship account to host a tournament that would raise even more private donations.

Werner Oyanadel, acting executive director of the commission, said the commission projected the tournament would raise $100,000 for scholarships.

Oyanadel refused to sign a contract for the September tournament because he didn’t know if there would be a commission in September, let alone the funds to cover the costs or staff to plan it.

“In order to sign the contract, we needed seed money in the account,” Oyanadel said.

He said it will take about $4,800 to cover the set-up costs of the tournament, which would be paid back from the proceeds.

“For the investment of $4,800 we can raise as much as $100,000, if everything works out properly,” Oyanadel said.

Previously, the commission relied on corporate contributions to fund the scholarship account.

Oyanadel said he was warned any money in the commission’s scholarship account – even though it was privately-raised – could be used to balance the budget.

The state has a history of using “sweeps” to come up with money in a pinch. Recent victims include Connecticut State University, which lost $10 million in tuition payments, and the University of Connecticut Health Center’s malpractice insurance fund, which contributed $20 million toward balancing the state budget.

The LPRAC scholarship account was much smaller, holding only thousands of dollars, but it was still at risk.

“Once we deposit this money, it becomes state money,” Oyanadel said. “That’s the way the state works.”

Based on this advice, Oyanadel said the commission awarded scholarships to spend down the account to a balance less than $1,000.

“Now we have to start from zero,” Oyanadel said.

Sen. Joe Markely, R-Southington, wants the state to cancel the release of private information to unions.

As part of the unionization process Gov. Dannel Malloy began last year with two executive orders, state officials are preparing to release the personal information of several thousand people who work for Connecticut’s elderly and disabled.

In September, Executive Order No. 10 started the process of unionizing personal care attendants, a broad group of independent contractors and employees of small companies who work for people receiving state subsidies.

“The PCA List shall be a public record,” Malloy wrote in his order.

State Sen. Joe Markley, R-Southington, will hold a press conference 1 p.m. Friday urging the state not to release the private information.

Another order issued on the same day, No. 9, began the process of unionizing home daycare owners. The Connecticut State Employee Association successfully won a vote to represent these business owners even though less than half of them returned ballots.

CSEA, also known as SEIU 2001, could generate as much as $2.5 million in new dues revenue from the daycare owners who will increase the size of the union by about 50 percent.

A fact sheet put out by the union said rates should rise at daycare centers “in parallel” with home providers after the union is in place.

Before a union can conduct a similar election with PCAs, it needs the state to turn over a list including their personal contact information.

“This is forced unionization, plain and simple,” Markley said.  “The administration is turning its back on PCAs and disabled residents, who have traveled to the Capitol numerous times in the last few weeks to testify before the Executive Order working groups and council – pleading with members to leave the intimate working relationship between PCAs and the disabled and elderly alone. Handing over these private names and addresses is ignoring the will of the people.”

Sen. Jason Welch, R-Bristol, and Rep. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, will join Markley. Cathy Ludlum, a Manchester woman who employs several PCAs, will also attend.