Rell To Judges: Take Furlough Days Like Everybody Else

Saying she was "dismayed" to learn that some Connecticut judges didn't voluntarily take any unpaid furlough days in the past year, Gov. M. Jodi Rell has written a letter bluntly asking them to take the days retroactively or repay the state.

Rell was reacting to disclosures in a Sept. 19 Government Watch column in The Courant, which reported that 26 jurists at the Superior, Appellate and Supreme Court levels chose not to take even one furlough day during the past fiscal year to fight the state government's budget crisis. The 26 made that choice despite a request from Chase T. Rogers, chief justice of the state Supreme Court, that they "take these days for the overall good of the [Judicial] Branch and for the morale of our dedicated employees."

"Recently I read a news article which stated that a small number of judges have declined the request of Chief Justice Rogers to voluntarily take the furlough days that other state employees were required to take," Rell wrote in a Sept. 22 letter with the salutation "Dear Distinguished Judges."

"To say that I am dismayed by this article is truly an understatement," the Republican governor wrote.