Exclusive: Barnes out at CSCU. Announcement imminent that Malloy loyalist is leaving perch.

Benjamin Barnes, one of former Governor Dannel P. Malloy’s loyalist during eight dark years, is leaving his post as finance director for the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU), Daily Ructions can report. An announcement is imminent.

Barnes, who served with Malloy in Stamford, was the surly Democrat’s budget director for nearly all of his two terms. As the end drew near in 2010, Malloy parachuted Barnes into CSCU.

Malloy often used higher education as a comfortable retreat for his top aides–even if they knew little about life in the academy. Malloy lived his philosophy when he snagged the top job at the University of Maine system–controversy has followed him.

Barnes earned notoriety when he–not Malloy–announced generous raises for 200 Malloy appointees in December 2014, seven weeks after Malloy won a narrow race for a second term. Barnes himself was award a 12% increase to $209,000 a year. The raises took effect the day after Christmas, of course. They came a month after Barnes declared Connecticut was in a “permanent fiscal crisis,” refuting the claims Malloy had made to win re-election. Barnes had considerable trouble balancing the state’s budget until a bipartisan coalition intervened in 2017 and began to restore the state’s finances.

Barnes received a salary of $213,600 when he moved to CSCU, though the position came with far fewer responsibilities than he was entrusted with as the head of the Office of Police and Management (OPM) for eight years.

Barnes is not expected to be the only top official at CSCU to depart from the state agency.

Published July 13, 2023.