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Leadership and integrity are highly prized and necessary traits for anyone in authority. But in Connecticut, neither leadership, integrity, or character seems to be a requirement for an executive position in state Government.
In 2021, Manisha Juthani, MD, the Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) did her best Scarlett O’Hara impersonation to try to convince Connecticut residents that the non-delivery of critical Covid-19 test kits was not “her fault” even after promising these same residents that the tests would certainly be delivered as she saw them on the airport runway en-route to Connecticut. King Governor Ned Lamont The Unaccountable has lied or lied by omission on a grand scale to citizens several times in the Sema4, Digital Currency Group and UNITE CT debacles, (inter-alia). Rep. Michael DiMassa and Mayor Joe Ganim, not nearly as sophisticated as the hi-tech enabled Ned The Unaccountable, elected to go with good-old country hardball ham-and-egg style fraud and theft. And should my Liberal readers cry foul, we can mention disgraced former Governor John Rowland as well. It is almost as if a criminal accusation or conviction is a requirement to the ascendancy of a high-level Connecticut position.
However, in a sick way, we may have reached a new Connecticut Gold Standard in unaccountability, pilfering, and corruption. His name? Terrence Cheng, outgoing Chancellor of Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU).
No doubt, readers will remember Terrence Cheng.
As I stated on January 11, 2025; "Between July 1, 2021 and Oct. 24, 2024, Cheng charged $27,125 to his P-Card, with 70% of those for meals designated as business meetings...ordered a driving service on three occasions despite having a state-owned car and then later renegotiated his contract to get a vehicle stipend." ... Chancellor Terrence Cheng who is a Connecticut state employee earns a salary of $442,000 a year along with a $2,100 a month housing allowance and $48,759 in non-retirement fringe benefits apparently does not even live in Connecticut but rather in New York.
But what is new here? Rather than making an example of this man and demanding repayment of all pilfered sums of taxpayer money in lieu of prosecution, we see that Terrence Cheng is somehow being given a new full-payment nonjob as a "strategic advisor to the Board" as he moves to "transition" to this position in July 2025. His contract as Chancellor has not been renewed as Chancellor but he somehow gets to keep the bulbous financial payment of the last year of his contract.
If Cheng worked in private industry he probably would have been fired for his actions and would have certainly paid restitution. However in Connecticut, where Connecticut Taxpayers are damned and treated like garbage, Cheng gets to keep his last year of his lucrative contract, and will likely will have some sort of state pension and benefits in the long term. This is his "reward" for costly actions. But given the multiple grafts and larcenies of many wearing the Connecticut uniform, Cheng probably would have a discrimination suit against the state for not being treated as handsomely as previous state miscreants if he had not received this obscene last year of salary.
Of course to the struggling Connecticut taxpayer, having a “University Chancellor” is critically important to the price of their meat, eggs, and baby formula. Given the practical uselessness of that position, one only wonders what a "strategic advisor to the Board" does for higher education to deserve a salary of $442,187 a year, plus benefits? Does he go on expensive business lunches that he can charge to his procurement card? Does he advise more Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion gibberish to further complicate and redefine what higher education is in the state? Does he give ceremonial teas and pose for photos? Does he form more committees to study how colleges should teach less actual subject matter in the classroom and more political indoctrination curriculum? I cannot find any information as to his new position, what it entails or what he will do if anything for his pay. But of course, peons in Connecticut do not have the right to ask those questions of the elite and anointed ruling class.
Further, one asks how contracts are drafted on behalf of the state that do not include automatic terminations on morals and malfeasance issues such as this instance. But since this is Connecticut, we never see bright line policy and accountability where a public official is involved. (You would think by now that we have learned not to ask about such things).
In addition, as an educator how does Cheng's excessively high salary and benefits package benefit the state college student in his or her education? Couldn't $442,187 plus benefits be better spent in actual education of the students and or in stabilizing tuition costs especially for those students who are willing to work for an education and trying to get a degree to better themselves, but face astronomical costs for a "subsidized" state college education? How about if a Connecticut Citizen DOGE just looks at the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) system and investigates the incredible salaries, benefits, pensions of the administrative staff that has helped to push up these same astronomical costs for a "subsidized" state college education?
But alas, we know this will not happen. Cheng's position will be embraced by Ned Lamont and his Democrat Legislature as an essential position that cannot be undone. We as citizens are not allowed to question what our leaders decree upon us. The truth of this unethical decision is that its shows how corrupted education has become in Connecticut and how little respect the Connecticut Democrat Party has for either the Connecticut college student and or the Connecticut Taxpayer. Connecticut State Colleges and Universities Chancellor Cheng should have been fired and immediately dunned for immediate restitution and not promoted.
It is a straightforward process that does not exist in a state with Omnipotent One-Party Rule, and an acceptance for serial evil and malfeasance at the highest levels.
These are the kinds of stories that persist in making me believe that, as a state, Connecticut flies under the radar, is used as a testing ground for national unscrupulous activity to come. (Re: voter fraud!!)
They push the envelope here, there are no repercussions, no reproachment. Just reward the guilty when they claim ignorance. Damn the indignant!!