A labor arbitrator has awarded three bargaining units within Connecticut’s Judicial Branch a 2.5% cost-of-living raise and a step increase this fiscal year, which effectively represents a 4.5% increase.
The raises, ordered for judicial marshals, their supervisors and a third group that includes probation officers, information technology analysts, assistant clerks, counselors and other support staff, are retroactive to July 1, when the fiscal year began.
The award announced Wednesday also increases the likelihood that dozens of additional bargaining units in state government — which haven’t yet settled compensation deals — will get similar raises. And if that happens, it will mark the fifth consecutive year state employees’ compensation has increased by about 4.5%. (A step hike typically adds about 2 percentage points to the overall raise value.)
“Every day, we keep our communities running — protecting the public and providing the essential services we all count on,” the unions wrote in a statement directed at Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration. “It’s time to stop the games and respect us.”
Though Judicial Branch administrators technically negotiate with the employees assigned to the court system — just as higher education leaders handle contracts with college and university staff — they follow guidelines set by the governor’s budget office, which handles talks with most of the state’s unionized workforce.
The governor, who repeatedly promised healthy wages for all state workers during the summer and fall, expressed appreciation Wednesday for all state workers.
“My administration continues to negotiate in good faith with all of the Executive Branch unions and has had informal discussions with the [State Employees Bargaining Agent] Coalition regarding health, retirement, and other benefits for the past several months,” Lamont said in a written statement. “As we saw yesterday, when DOT crews worked overtime in Litchfield County to keep our roads safe during the snowstorm, our state employees are the backbone.”
The governor added that “this award is consistent with what we have put on the table in negotiations for our bargaining units for the first year of the contract. It is my hope we can reach a multi-year agreement in the near future with all of our labor partners.”
The administration insisted legislators include more than $200 million in the new state budget adopted last June, which would be sufficient cover 4.5% raises for most workers.
Still, several bargaining units became frustrated once the fiscal year began and new wage agreements had not been resolved. By July 8, all three Judicial Branch units, which represent about 2,100 workers in total, had broken off talks.
By the end of September, that number had grown to six, as unions representing rank-and-file correction officers, their supervisors and various education professionals also declared negotiations to be at an impasse.
Despite the governor’s public promises for healthy raises, the state and unions hadn’t resolved any contracts, disagreeing over work conditions and particularly work-from-home rules established during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lamont administration has argued that workers should be spending more time in the office, while unions counter remote work is not an impediment to productivity.
This week’s arbitration award only addresses compensation for this fiscal year. The state and more than 30 bargaining units — including the three Judicial Branch units involved in the arbitration award — still must resolve compensation for future years as well as any changes to working conditions.
Tensions between Lamont and state employee unions also have worsened because of employment vacancies.
Labor leaders say the governor, a fiscally moderate Democrat, has left most agencies understaffed since he took office in 2019, even as state government has used aggressive budget caps to leave historic levels of money unspent.
“The longer these contracts are delayed, the less our agencies will be able to retain critical talent, let alone recruit effectively to fill the thousands of vacancies” across all departments, the three Judicial Branch units wrote in their statement.
State government has averaged more than $1.8 billion in surpluses since 2017, which equals 8% to 9% of the General Fund. Lamont’s budget office projects a $2 billion surplus for the current fiscal year.
Given that more than three-quarters of Connecticut’s budget is largely fixed by contract or other legal obligations, 8% or more can be substantial.
These surpluses largely have been used to whittle down Connecticut’s hefty pension debt, which was amassed over seven decades prior to 2011 and still exceeds $33 billion.
Lamont largely has resisted scaling back this debt reduction effort to grow state agency staffing, despite surging overtime expenses.
Still, those surpluses have helped state employees enjoy raises far beyond those offered in the 2010s.
Arbiters consider the state’s ability to pay, among other factors, when deciding whether to order raises. And unions can cite those huge surpluses when seeking arbitration, which means this week’s award could provide a blueprint for more than 30 other bargaining units to seek hikes equal to about 4.5%.
Unions also noted that Lamont and the General Assembly back in May awarded a 2.5% cost-of-living raise and a step hike — effectively a 4.5% raise — to state police troopers for the 2025-26 fiscal year. The trooper’s union is the one major bargaining unit not in the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition.
Keith M. Phaneuf is a reporter for the Connecticut Mirror. Copyright 2025 @ CT Mirror (ctmirror.org).