The Rell administration's recent hiring of a state agricultural inspector without experience or education in farming -- while bypassing several job applicants who possessed such credentials - has key legislators considering a bill to tighten state personnel procedures next year to prevent such future hirings.
Agriculture Commissioner F. Philip Prelli's July 16 hiring of Debra Hinman -- a former pizza restaurant chef and school bus driver who is the mother of an ex-aide to Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell's chief of staff -- was labeled "outrageous" by state Sen. Edith Prague, D-Columbia, co-chairwoman of the legislature's labor committee.
Prague said she read a Government Watch column disclosing the hiring in Sunday's Courant and now plans next January, when the legislature reconvenes, "to see what the labor committee can do to keep people from getting jobs unless they have the qualifications. ... There's something very wrong with a commissioner being able to put somebody who doesn't qualify into such an important position."