With the state in the final quarter of the fiscal year and the end to the legislative session less than two months away, Connecticut continues to post a roughly $500 million budget deficit, the practice of “longevity bonuses” for state employees continues.

House Republican Leader Larry Cafero has opposed the continuation of these bonuses which can range from $2,500 - $25,000 and are paid out over two payments during the calendar year, once in April and once in October.

Above is coverage from WTNH on the issue.

UTC Tells Wall Street: ‘Anyplace Outside Connecticut’
ERIC GERSHON The Hartford Courant

NEW YORK - Connecticut’s biggest private employer is determined to move more of its operations outside its home state and other “high-cost” locations, a top executive said today at a conference in New York. “Anyplace outside of Connecticut is low-cost,” United Technologies Corp.’s chief financial officer, Gregory Hayes, told Wall Street analysts — paraphrasing previous remarks by another UTC executive, Jeff Pino, the president of Sikorsky Aircraft.

“Even if work has to stay in the U.S., there are opportunities to reduce cost by moving out of those high-cost locations,” Hayes said.

Hartford-based UTC has 26,000 of its 205,000 global employees in Connecticut, largely at Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky and Hamilton Sundstrand.

No one at the company has talked publicly about how many jobs the company would move, or which jobs, or when, or where the work would go. However, UTC is investing heavily in operations in China, Turkey and Poland. It is increasingly focused on India as a market for its products, and operations often follow demand around the world.

In response to an earlier report of the UTC remarks on courant.com, Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s office issued a statement calling for the state to lower business costs.

“The comments by the UTC executives today reinforce Governor Rell’s message that we must improve our business climate,” the statement said. “More taxes, more mandates and more costs for employers are not the answers. Given the current budget deficit, the legislature needs to make some tough choices ? but it cannot do so at the expense of our businesses and our employers. We need to cut spending and hold the line on taxes…it’s really that simple.”

As one of the world’s largest and most complex companies maps out its global footprint, the calculations are anything but simple. UTC must weigh not only costs, but international politics and the constantly shifting marketing landscape that affects where it makes aerospace equipment and building systems.

And the issue of cost is not simply one state versus another within the United States. Hayes said UTC, which is made up of six major industrial subsidiaries, has 112 manufacturing facilities in what he termed “high-cost countries,” compared with 64 in lower cost countries.

“So, still 2-to-1 ratio, high-cost to low-cost,” he said, noting that there is opportunity to alter that ratio.

In recent years, UTC has maintained a relatively stable workforce in its home state. It has added jobs in some places — notably Sikorsky, where it has boosted employment from 7,200 to 9,300 since 1993 — and paring elsewhere, including hourly production work at Pratt. The ranks of Pratt hourly workers in the Connecticut Machinists union, about 15,000 two decades ago, have shrunk to 3,700 — and Pratt plans to eliminate more as it fights in a federal appeals court to be able to move the work of its Cheshire overhaul and repair factory to Pratt plants in Columbus, Ga., Singapore and Japan. If successful, that effort would cost Connecticut about 1,000 jobs.

Top UTC executives have spoken often about the high cost of operating in Connecticut for years, especially in factory production work for Pratt’s jet engine manufacture and assembly. In 1992, for example, the company publicly raised the possibility of sharply curtailing production in Connecticut. A package of state tax breaks and other incentives saved thousands of jobs, but production work nonetheless declined in Connecticut in the years that followed.

Last year Pratt opened two major new manufacturing operations in Shanghai and Instanbul. Pratt alone employs about 5,000 people in Poland, according to Pratt President David Hess — equivalent to about half of the division’s Connecticut workforce.

When it came his turn to speak, Pino, the Sikorsky president, said, “Generally, every place we go is lower cost than Connecticut.”

UTC reiterated its previous 2010 financial forecast: it expects earnings to grow between 7 percent and 13 percent, or $4.40 to $4.65 per share, on revenue growth of two to four percent, or $54 billion to $55 billion.

UTC’s top executives are hosting Wall Street investment analysts at a conference about the company’s prospects in 2010. The meeting is at the St. Regis Hotel in Manhattan.

Twice a year the state pays out longevity payments to employees who have worked for at least 10 years in the state system. Bonuses for unionized employees are included in collective bargaining but House Republican Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., said thousands of other employees have their longevity payments determined by statute which could be changed by the legislature the next time it is in session.

“At a time when the state is hundreds of millions of dollars in deficit and critical programs such as education and social services are being eyed for cuts and non-profits are struggling to stay open, we cannot afford these pay bonuses. In some cases they run in the tens of thousands of dollars,’’ Cafero said.

He said legislation to delay the payments could be offered before April 1. He noted that attempts to curtail the payments have been made in the past. The state’s deficit grows larger everyday without any significant cuts, the situation is even more dire. Cafero said. Cafero said that cutting back on the payments must be part of the overall deficit mitigation plan that the legislature must take up as soon as possible.

Republicans first proposed the elimination of the bonuses last year. The highest bonus reported was more than $24,000 for the CSU chancellor.

Cafero said he hopes that the overall issue of bonuses for state employees can be dealt with to include unionized workers. “Those covered by collective bargaining must be dealt with fairly at the bargaining table,’’ Cafero said. “However, the legislature can act now to cut spending and reduce our deficit wherever we can find savings,’’ Cafero said.

Last year the bonuses cost the state of Connecticut nearly $43 million for thousands of employees, according to reports. Union bonuses were capped at just over $1,000 while non-union bonuses reached a maximum of $24,000 based on salary and service time.

Hoydick won a special election on March 2nd to fill out the unexpired term of former Representative John Harkins who resigned his seat after being elected Mayor of Stratford last November.

Following the swearing in Rep. Hoydick joined her family, House Republican Leader Larry Cafero and other members of the House Republican Caucus and staff as she was officially welcomed in her role as state representative.

Rep. Hoydick will serve on the legislature’s Banks Committee, Transportation Committee, and Select Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. The current session of the Connecticut General Assembly concludes on Wednesday, May 5th.

HARTFORD — Rep. Sean Williams offered a common sense message to small business owners and manufacturers during a forum recently, asking them to hold lawmakers accountable for the actions they take and proposals they at the Capitol. It was the Connecticut Business & Industry Association’s “business day” in Hartford, and Williams, who represents Watertown and Woodbury, participated in a panel discussion that had members of the state’s business community lobbing questions about the future of Connecticut’s economy and the steps the legislature will take to stimulate growth for small businesses.

A strong contingent of small businesses and their employees from communities in the greater Waterbury-area made the trip to Hartford, traveling to the Capitol on the newly-minted “Common Sense Caravan.” The Waterbury Regional Chamber of Commerce launched the effort so members could deliver a simple message to the legislature: Small businesses and working families can’t afford the anti business attitude rampant in the General Assembly.

Several of the panelists, including Williams, are members of the legislature’s Commerce Committee. As they fielded questions about current proposals at the Capitol, most lawmakers talked about how the committee’s pro-business initiatives had been outpaced by anti-business proposals pushed in other legislative committees.

As Williams participated in the “business day” discussion, rumblings about a controversial employee sick time proposal from majority party leadership reverberated through the Capitol complex.

After all, it was years of costly mandates handed down from government that prompted many business leaders to travel to Hartford on “business day” with hopes of making an impression on lawmakers.

Many employers, big and small, say they are opposed to the paid sick time proposal because it would not only increase their costs, but also hurt their ability to hire more workers.

Williams urged the panel’s audience to become even more active in the legislative process—urging those in the room, as well as their employees, to hold elected officials accountable for the votes they make.

“Politicians and elected officials are famous for saying one thing in their districts, then coming here and doing something completely different,” he said. “The legislature, as a whole, needs to have a message sent to it.”

“It’s your job to hold us accountable—unless we hear from you, nothing is going to change,” Williams said.

HARTFORD — Roughly half the people in a Capitol hearing room raised a hand when Rep. Sean Williams asked how many had contacted their representative or senator about legislation they feared would hurt their ability to hire new employees, or even keep those already on the payroll.

It was “business day” here, and Williams, along with Reps. Pam Sawyer, John Stripp and Mike Alberts, sat on a panel of legislators asked to answer questions from company owners and employees anxious to improve the state’s business climate. Subjects included the status of Commerce Committe legislation covering business loans, and the need for a more aggressive marketing plan for Connecticut.

After seeing the response to his question, Williams, who represents Watertown and Woodbury, urged everyone in the group to hold legislators accountable for the proposals they support — that means phone calls, emails or even a quick conversation at a neighborhood grocery store.

Meanwhile, holding legislators accountable is exactly what Reps. Larry Cafero, Selim Noujaim and Rosa Rebimbas did during a news conference a few rooms away.

Earlier in the day, Democrats chose “business day” to roll out a job-killing mandatory sick leave proposal on all businesses — a day after an elaborate news conference where they claimed job growth is their signature issue this legislative session.

“The Democrats claim they want to create job growth back in their home districts because 90,000 Connecticut people have lost their jobs in this recession,’’ said Cafero, House Republicans leader. “And then they roll out a mandatory sick leave bill in Hartford that they know companies across the state vehemently oppose. They are being schizophrenic.’’

Predictability was a leading topic during the panel discussion in which Williams, Sawyer, Stripp and Alberts participated–namely, business owners in Connecticut have no idea what costly fee or regulation they’ll have to fend off next.

Connecticut would become the first state in the country to require all companies to provide mandatory sick leave for part-time and full-time employees.

The bill that will be raised in the Labor and Public Employees Committee this week requires that any employee who logs at least 520 hours of work a year receive seven paid sick leave days. The 520 hour minimum defines a part-time worker by any standard.

Only San Francisco and Washington D.C., require companies to provide paid sick leave.

“I believe that is telling. One city boasts the highest cost of doing business in the country and the other, Washington, is the most dysfunctional,’’ Cafero said.

The bill would apply to businesses that employ 60 people or more. Cafero and other Republicans were joined at their Capitol press conference by business owners, one of whom said his company has 48 employees. The owners said they would not be inclined to add more payroll if that mean their costs of doing business went up.

Watch Rep. Mike Alberts participate in the panel discussion:

Watch Rep. John Stripp Participate in the panel discussion: