Geno offers to give up pay - Well...at least someone in CT gets it

[Geew1992]

Auriemma offers to forgo pay for CT budget

 

[MilfordHusky]

Kudos to Geno!

 

[Huskee11]

Unlike the legislators, he is well worth what he is paid.

The legislators not only get mileage reimbursement, but unbelievably the mileage reimbursement is included in their pension calculations. Since legislators get the same pension benefits as other state employees, one can see why they are not eager to cut back in that area. Maybe they would agree to give up some of these exorbitant benefits?

Over 1,000 state retirees have six figure pensions, and again unbelievably, 11 retirees are receiving illegal pensions - pensions in excess of the IRS limits on the amount an individual can receive. No apparent attempt by Connecticut to comply. Why not?

 

[Charliebball]

keep this up CT and New Jerseyans will soon be laughing at you....................

 

[HoopsFan21]

Thanks Geno!

 

[cbraarj]

Geno keep the money and set your grandsons up with this years pay!

 

[Alydar]

Unlike the legislators, he is well worth what he is paid.

The legislators not only get mileage reimbursement, but unbelievably the mileage reimbursement is included in their pension calculations. Since legislators get the same pension benefits as other state employees, one can see why they are not eager to cut back in that area. Maybe they would agree to give up some of these exorbitant benefits?

Over 1,000 state retirees have six figure pensions, and again unbelievably, 11 retirees are receiving illegal pensions - pensions in excess of the IRS limits on the amount an individual can receive. No apparent attempt by Connecticut to comply. Why not?

Actually CT might be better served by paying more to legislators. Many current legislators are employed by large financial corporations that pay them their entire salary while they work full-time as a legislator. For those corporations it's like have a lobbyist and a voting member of state government for less than the price of a lobbyist alone. It's a financial hardship for a private citizen to give up his/her career to sit in the state house or senate.

 

[rvwsleep]

No exact details available yet. He made the offer in light of the State's budget crisis and a possible $300 million dollar reduction in education funding.
Offers like this just don't happen every day. Got to love Geno.

 

[HoopsFan21]

Already a thread for this.

 

[HoopsFan21]

Love this quote by Coach: "I'll give up what the state pays me, what the taxpayers are paying me, but guess what? I pay my taxes and I don't care how much money it costs for me to have good schools where I live in Manchester. My [adult] kids don't go to school there. I can afford it. I want to be proud of our town's education system. Why is it that older people turn their back on education when somebody paid for their kids when they were in school? We've lost sight of what we have to do for other people."

 

[rvwsleep]

Already a thread for this.

I missed it. Maybe the mods can combine.

 

[HoopsFan21]

I missed it. Maybe the mods can combine.

Yeah it's the one called "at least someone in CT gets it." Check it out a bunch of posts in there already!

 

[DaddyChoc]

I missed it. Maybe the mods can combine.

Thanks for the simple, to the point title... I missed it as well

 

[EricLA]

I missed it as well. Clever title to a thread, but I had no idea it was about Geno offering to forego his salary to help Connecticut with the budget crisis...

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Geno Auriemma offers to work for free in light of budget crisis

Geno Auriemma Offers to Give Up Pay to Help Balance UConn Budget

The man knows how to shine the light doesn't he.

 

[bags27]

"I'll give up what the state pays me, what the taxpayers are paying me..." That doesn't include all the other income he gets or could get based on that state-supported work. As we've discussed, 400k is salary, the other 1.6M from the athletic dept, etc

Not trying to be nasty to Geno, for whom I have enormous respect. But then how about (say) CD who makes 400k? is an assoc. head coach worth that much in a budget crisis where they might have to cut substantially the honors program? Doesn't this put pressure on her? etc, etc . until we're down to someone who has to explain their (say) 125k salary with a kid in college and a sick parent. etc etc

Geno is making way too much money in absolute terms but is a steal in relative value. Why should he suffer and put pressure on a lot of other people because of the greed, larceny, mismanagement, and stupidity of others? He should take his entire contractural salary. How much of it he then decides to donate back to the university is his business.

 

[augustaTC]

Good for Geno, but somehow I don't think the issue is whether Geno or CD or some other coach gets paid whatever they get paid. The market sets those prices and as the saying goes, "if you wanna play, you gotta pay" - which is a whole other discussion. While I don't live in CT any more, I'm guessing CT is staggering under enormous public employee pension obligations and an eroding tax base, caused in large part by poor management and corporate & personal tax rates that drive residents and employers elsewhere. The pols who created the problems love to avoid dealing with the real issues by misdirecting the debate.

 

[huskeynut]

Geno's salary, and Kevin Ollie's, paid by the State of Connecticut is $307,000+ per year.

As to media reporting this, did they do their homework?

 

[RSHERMVIKES]

What really peeves me off is the Governor and House and Senate are still making their salaries and pensions and they're the ones that got CT into this mess! How about their salaries are donated to the CT coffers even though it's a drop in the bucket when CT is $3 Billion in debt, they shouldn't be paid when 2,000 to 3,000 employees are being laid off!

 

[uconnfan68]

Geno's salary, and Kevin Ollie's, paid by the State of Connecticut is $307,000+ per year.

As to media reporting this, did they do their homework?

Joe Zone didn't. He got his $multimillion salary dig in.

 

[tomcat]

I don't even know if any of this is appropriate, but because I have a bit of experience with the subject of state government, and because I really feel for state employees who will be laid off through no fault of their own, I'll offer my two cents' worth, in hopes that it's worth, well, at least two cents:

Way back when (1989 or so), for a brief period I was an employee of the State of Connecticut. I was in one of those jobs labeled by media and politicians as
political appointees," which in my case was ridiculous, because I had no political connections at all. What I did have, as it turned out, was a particular skill that the department head at the time needed, and got hired because of it, but that's another story. Anyway, for about two years I got to see how all this worked, and (though I lave not lived in Connecticut since the mid 90s) it seems to me that it has not changed much since then, based on headlines, political statements and stuff I read here, except in a financial sense, to get worse.

So a couple of thoughts:
The people you elect are responsible for the structure of governmental operations, as well as the finances. This may seem obvious, but politicians, when possible, scapegoat other folks, often the employees their own government has hired. Example: The many states with underfunded state pension plans. Does anyone blame state employees, or their unions, for having gotten the best pension deal they could back in the day? I sure don't. But there's lots of blame to go around among the pols and senior managers who then refused to properly fund those pensions. When the time came to pay, they were nowhere in sight.
The penchant for kicking the can down the road never seems to change, yes?

My experience with state employees was there were many who got their jobs because they knew someone, but by and large they seemed to work hard and with a great deal of loyalty to "state service," which is what we called it back then. There were a few who did very little, but not many more than I found in the private sector. Surprisingly, there were few managers promoted up to their level of incompetence. Managers had the subject-matter expertise and experience and managerial skills to keep the place running.

What I did find was a level of understaffing and underequipping that was almost criminal. If the department underperformed, it was because it had primitive IT systems and not enough human infrastructuire -- support staff -- to get the job done as well as it should.

Politicians who say they want to run the state like a business are fools, because the state is not a business, and anyone who sees the many and divergent interests that political leaders have to take into account and, in some cases, please, understands that state government operates very differently than do businesses. That is not necessarily a good thing, but you simply cannot ignore political realities when you look to rationalize state government.

For what it's worth.

 

[HoopsFan21]

I don't even know if any of this is appropriate, but because I have a bit of experience with the subject of state government, and because I really feel for state employees who will be laid off through no fault of their own, I'll offer my two cents' worth, in hopes that it's worth, well, at least two cents:

Way back when (1989 or so), for a brief period I was an employee of the State of Connecticut. I was in one of those jobs labeled by media and politicians as
political appointees," which in my case was ridiculous, because I had no political connections at all. What I did have, as it turned out, was a particular skill that the department head at the time needed, and got hired because of it, but that's another story. Anyway, for about two years I got to see how all this worked, and (though I lave not lived in Connecticut since the mid 90s) it seems to me that it has not changed much since then, based on headlines, political statements and stuff I read here, except in a financial sense, to get worse.

So a couple of thoughts:
The people you elect are responsible for the structure of governmental operations, as well as the finances. This may seem obvious, but politicians, when possible, scapegoat other folks, often the employees their own government has hired. Example: The many states with underfunded state pension plans. Does anyone blame state employees, or their unions, for having gotten the best pension deal they could back in the day? I sure don't. But there's lots of blame to go around among the pols and senior managers who then refused to properly fund those pensions. When the time came to pay, they were nowhere in sight.
The penchant for kicking the can down the road never seems to change, yes?

My experience with state employees was there were many who got their jobs because they knew someone, but by and large they seemed to work hard and with a great deal of loyalty to "state service," which is what we called it back then. There were a few who did very little, but not many more than I found in the private sector. Surprisingly, there were few managers promoted up to their level of incompetence. Managers had the subject-matter expertise and experience and managerial skills to keep the place running.

What I did find was a level of understaffing and underequipping that was almost criminal. If the department underperformed, it was because it had primitive IT systems and not enough human infrastructuire -- support staff -- to get the job done as well as it should.

Politicians who say they want to run the state like a business are fools, because the state is not a business, and anyone who sees the many and divergent interests that political leaders have to take into account and, in some cases, please, understands that state government operates very differently than do businesses. That is not necessarily a good thing, but you simply cannot ignore political realities when you look to rationalize state government.

For what it's worth.

So what's this deal with the pensions? Do they have to get a pension because they won't have social security or something?

 

[Rixxx]

Simply, the pensions are benefits that help to keep the state workers from returning to the private sector where they can probably make more money. The workers will still be eligible for SS.

 

[Monte]

So what's this deal with the pensions? Do they have to get a pension because they won't have social security or something?

Public School teachers in CT, do not get Social Security.....other state workers may get it.

 

[HoopsFan21]

Public School teachers in CT, do not get Social Security.....other state workers may get it.

Oh really I thought all American citizens get it automatically, I mean as long as the program is around which it probably won't be by the time I retire in 50 years. Does this mean that the teachers also don't have to pay into it?