AG to Look Into Rell, UConn Poll

It didn't take long for the Governor's office to respond to a New London Day article that Thursday had attacked a study ordered by the governor's office.

It also did not take long for Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and the state auditors to announce they will conduct a joint probe into whether state funds for the project were misused for political purposes.

 A spokesman for UConn says the school's office of audit, compliance and ethics is examining the project's research to see if it violates UConn's code of ethics.

The issue is what the newspaper's coverage of the study, conducted by Kenneth Dautrich, director of Public Policy at UConn, which was paid for by taxpayers' dollars and contained political information that would benefit Rell.  Namely, this was a proposed question on who people would vote for in the next gubernatorial election: Rell or Richard Blumenthal, who has long been considered a formidable vote-getter. 

The report said that while the study does include ways to streamline state government, it also shows how to frame a political strategy for managing the budget crisis.

Matthew Fritz, a special assistant to the Governor, wrote to the Day Friday, calling himself a "bit player" in the newspaper's story. But, he said, nothing in the work Dautrich did for the state constituted an ethics issue. There were no political aspects to the project, no polling conducted, no comparison of potential candidates, he said.

The $220,000 study was commissioned by the governor's office to find ways to cut government costs. It would take 30 months to complete. Dautrich says he's about halfway through his work and, already, the study has saved the state millions of dollars.

On Thursday, Democratic legislative leaders blasted Rell, saying an investigation should be conducted. They said that a principled leader, in a time of crisis, should not use taxpayer dollars to research the popularity of positions before taking them.

Rell is in Torrington Friday and is expected to address the issue herself.

Copyright Associated Press / NBC Connecticut

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