In the latest salvo of a week-long battle over the $1.6-billion savings that the Malloy administration claims will be realized from the concession deal now being voted on by state employee unions, House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero said Friday that the administration's budget chief has in effect admitted that Cafero was right along.
Cafero said that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's budget chief, Ben Barnes, contradicted an assertion made Tuesday by the governor's communications director, Colleen Flanagan, when Barnes said in a letter to a Republican state Senator Thursday that not all of the administration's claimed savings has been "reviewed and verified by actuaries."
Cafero noted that Flanagan had asserted Tuesday that "actuaries verified these numbers. Period." But, Cafero said, it "turns out the 'period' was actually a question mark."
Cafero's statement appears in full below. It is followed by the reaction of Malloy's senior adviser, Roy Occhiogrosso, who characterized Republican lawmakers' criticism this week as "sour grapes."
