OFFICE OF FISCAL ANALYSIS
Legislative Office Building, Room 5200
Hartford, CT 06106 (860) 240-0200
http://www.cga.ct.gov/ofa
sHB-5300
AN ACT REQUIRING LEGISLATIVE APPROVAL FOR THE
MERGER OR CLOSING OF INSTITUTIONS WITHIN THE
CONNECTICUT STATE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES AND
PROHIBITING THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE REGIONAL
COMMUNITY -TECHNICAL COLLEGES.
Primary Analyst: JS 4/4/22
Contributing Analyst(s):
OFA Fiscal Note
State Impact:
Agency Affected Fund-Effect FY 23 $ FY 24 $
Board of Regents for Higher
Education
Various - Cost Significant Significant
Note: Various=Various
Municipal Impact: None
Explanation
The bill, which prevents community college consolidation, is
anticipated to result in a significant cost to the Board of Regents (BOR),
potentially beginning in FY 22 and continuing into the future. The bill
also establishes a new legislative approval process of certain other
community college changes that may occur, which may prevent or delay
any associated costs or savings.
Section 2 ends the community college consolidation process that is
currently underway and prevents any similar future effort, effective
immediately. This results in a significant cost to the BOR community
colleges, which may begin in FY 22, because the board consequently
must re-hire numerous campus-level leadership positions for
accreditation maintenance of the 12 community colleges. It is
anticipated that these costs will exceed, by millions of dollars, the
savings from simultaneous layoffs and title downgrading of regional 2022HB-05300-R000278-FN.DOCX Page 2 of 3
and consolidated-college personnel. In FY 23, it is estimated that the net
savings due to the consolidation will be $10.9 million (savings of $35
million partially offset by costs of $24.1 million).
The consolidation, which the BOR began in 2017, has resulted in a net
savings through: (1) many manager-level positions at the college level
being held open, combined, or refilled at lower costs on an interim basis;
(2) the formation of a regional structure that contains several director-
level positions being phased out at the 12 colleges along with new
regional president and regional workforce development positions; and
(3) the formation of an executive-level structure along with shared
services for some administrative functions. The costs of the new
positions are substantial but less than the savings at the college level.
A few examples of the position changes at the college level are: (1) the
Director of Finance positions are being phased out to the highest college-
level position of Associate Director of Finance, as many functions move
to shared services and leadership is shifted to the consolidated college;
and (2) the Director of Human Resources positions are being phased out
to one director position in each of the three regions, with a generalist
staff person on each college campus and specialized functions at the
consolidated college.
Section 1 may prevent or delay for up to 12 to 16 months any savings
or costs anticipated to result from any other college or university merger
or closure recommended by the Board of Regents. The bill requires an
affirmative vote of the General Assembly within a specified timeframe
equal to 12 to 16 months in order for the merger or closure to proceed
(or the recommendation is deemed accepted), which delays any
anticipated costs or savings. The length of the delay would be equal to
the amount of time between the General Assembly receiving merger or
closure notice and the date of an affirmative vote (or deemed
acceptance). If within the voting timeframe one chamber of the General
Assembly rejects the merger or closure, the merger or closure will be
halted, which prevents the realization of any savings or costs that would
have resulted. 2022HB-05300-R000278-FN.DOCX Page 3 of 3
The Out Years
The annualized ongoing fiscal impact identified above would
continue into the future subject to inflation.