Legislative Program Review and Investigations Committee

Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities
Chapter II

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Enforcement of Civil Rights in Connecticut

 

The first Connecticut agency established to investigate the possibility of affording equal opportunity was the Inter-racial Commission created in 1943.  The commission comprised ten members appointed by the governor. Its mission was to compile facts concerning discrimination in employment. By 1947, employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, or ancestry was outlawed with the adoption of the Fair Employment Practices Act.  The act was designed to provide legal protection in all phases of employment and made the commission an enforcement agency.

The commission name was changed to the Commission on Civil Rights in 1951 and in 1967 it was again renamed to the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. Over time several laws were passed adding more “protected classes”, categories of people sharing certain characteristics that public policy determines may not be the basis of discrimination.  (A more detailed chronology of the agency’s legislative history can be found in Appendix B.)

CHRO Roles and Responsibilities

The Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) is the state’s lead agency established to enforce discrimination laws. It is responsible for monitoring and enforcing the state’s equal opportunity, affirmative action, and contract compliance laws. The agency’s stated mission is “to eliminate discrimination through civil and human rights law enforcement and to establish equal opportunity and justice for all within the state through advocacy and education.”

To accomplish this, the commission has several statutorily established powers and duties. Among its statutory responsibilities the commission:

·        receives, initiates, investigates and mediates discrimination complaints;

·        by itself, or its hearing officers or human rights referees, holds hearings, subpoenas witnesses and compels attendance, administers oaths, takes testimony of any person under oath, and requires the production for examination of any books and papers relating to any matter under investigation or in question;

·        receives, reviews, and monitors the affirmative action plans of state agencies and certain public works contractors;

·        investigates the possibilities of affording equal opportunity of profitable employment to all persons, with particular reference to job training and placement;

·        utilizes voluntary and uncompensated services of private individuals, agencies, and organizations to study the problems of discrimination in all or specific fields of human relationships and to foster through education and community efforts or otherwise good will among the groups and elements of the state’s population;

·        establishes and maintains such offices and employs such commission counsel, investigators, and employees as the commission may deem necessary; and

·        reports at least annually to the governor  recommendations for removal of injustices that exist.

CHRO also has workshare agreements with the federal Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)  to process discrimination complaints brought under both state and federal law.

Organizational Structure and Staff Resources

As shown in Figure II-1, CHRO is governed by a nine-member policy making body. Five commission members are appointed by the governor and four by the legislature. The commission is served by commission counsel and appoints the agency’s executive director to manage day-to- day operations. The agency’s central administrative headquarters consists of four divisions including: Diversity, Education, and Economic Services; Enforcement/Field Operations; Administrative Services; and Legal Services. The agency also maintains four regional offices in Hartford, Waterbury, Bridgeport, and Norwich, which make up the bulk of the enforcement division.

Commission. The commission is composed of nine volunteers appointed by the governor and legislature. Of the five gubernatorial appointments, three serve five-year terms and two serve three-year terms. The president pro tempore of the Senate, the minority leader of the Senate, the speaker of the House of Representatives, and the minority leader of the House of Representatives each appoints one commissioner who serves for a term of three years. The commission generally meets on a monthly basis. The primary focus of commission meetings is to give final approval to state affirmative action plans and discuss any policy or administrative matters brought by the executive staff or commission counsel.

The commissioners may serve on various CHRO standing committees through either appointment or by volunteering. The standing committees are: Administration and Personnel; Office of Diversity Programs; Office of Economic Services; Legislation; Office of Education Programs; and Systemic Enforcement.  However, these committees are now inactive. A list of current commissioners is provided in Appendix C.

Office of Commission Counsel.  The Office of Commission Counsel provides guidance and assistance to the commission, director, and executive staff in legal matters and the legal implications of policy and management decisions. Commission counsel is also authorized by law to represent the commission at public hearings and in state and federal court. The office also drafts legislation, regulations, and other legal documents. In addition, the office provides legal support to the enforcement field operations division.

Division of Diversity, Education, and Economic Services.  The Division of Diversity, Education, and Economic Services manages three primary agency functions: reviewing state agency affirmation action plans; monitoring state contract compliance; and promoting education and outreach activities. It provides training and technical assistance to state agencies regarding their affirmative action plans as well as evaluates their implementation.

Staff of this division also examine employment practices and procedures of state contractors and monitor state agencies’ efforts to solicit the participation of minority business enterprises in state contracts.  Another division function is to educate the public regarding human rights issues and organize community outreach activities.

Administrative Services. The Administrative Services Division is composed of the Business Office and Management Information System. The division’s primary duty is to  prepare and administer the agency’s budget.  It is also responsible for the collection, storage, and retrieval of data. It produces regular statistical reports to aid in the internal management of the agency, and provides the commission and executive director with other regular and special reports whenever necessary.

Enforcement/Field Operations.  The Enforcement/Field Operations division is responsible for receiving, investigating, and mediating complaints of alleged discrimination filed with the commission. Throughout most of this study, the overall operation of the division was overseen by the commission’s deputy director of enforcement. As of December 1999, after the deputy director position was eliminated, a Chief of Field Operations is responsible. The division includes four regional offices, in Hartford, Bridgeport, Waterbury, and Norwich. Figure II-2 provides a map of the towns in each CHRO region.

The regional offices process all discrimination complaints (except housing), from intake through investigative disposition. (The full CHRO complaint process is discussed further in Chapter IV). Each regional office is organized into two units: a Merit Assessment Review Unit (MAR) and a Full Investigation Unit (FIU) as depicted in Figure II-3.  The MAR unit typically consists of three CHRO investigators who conduct intake interviews, assist in complaint drafting, and initially assess the merits of each filed complaint. If the complaint is retained after MAR, it is sent to FIU where it is assigned for further action.  Each regional office has five FIU staff who conduct investigations. This staff includes persons working under two different job titles, one requiring the employees to be lawyers, the other not.  The day-to-day operations of each regional office is supervised by a regional manager who reports directly to the Chief of Field Operations (formerly the deputy director of enforcement). 

The Enforcement Division also maintains a Special Enforcement Unit in the central office. This unit is charged with investigating housing complaints and evaluating reconsiderations of initial determinations made by the regional offices. 

Human Rights Referees. Another entity associated with CHRO but not part of its administrative structure is the Public Hearing Office. This office houses seven human rights referees established by P.A. 98-245.  The referees must be attorneys and are appointed by the governor for staggered two and three year terms. They serve full time and conduct administrative hearings of all complaints determined to have reasonable cause.  Until 1998, this work was done by part-time hearing officers. The CHRO executive director designates one human rights referee to serve as the chief human rights referee on an annual basis. The chief supervises and assigns cases to the other referees. 

Budget Resources

The agency’s primary source of funding is the state General Fund. Figure II-4 illustrates CHRO’s total General Fund appropriations and expenditures for the last 10 fiscal years. As the graph illustrates, CHRO appropriations and expenditures have gradually increased since FY90. The agency’s FY99 operating budget was approximately $6 million, up from about $4 million in FY90, an increase of 46 percent. The majority of the commission’s expenditures consists of personal services.

 
Figure II-5 tracks the commission’s operating budget over the past nine fiscal years in both actual and constant 1990 dollars. As shown in the figure, expenditures in actual terms have gradually increased to $5,313,014 in FY 98 from $4,243,942 in FY 90, an increase of about 25 percent. However, an analysis of the commission’s expenditures in constant 1990 dollars suggests that the agency’s expenditures have not increased in spending power.  The graph shows the agency’s spending power actually declined when adjusted for inflation and remains below its 1990 level.

Federal contributions. CHRO also receives federal contributions from EEOC and HUD. These contributions are outlined under workshare agreements with the federal agencies. The amount of federal funds received each year depends on the number of employment and housing discrimination complaints CHRO processes. In its contract with EEOC, CHRO and EEOC determine the number of employment complaints the federal government will pay the state for processing. Currently, EEOC pays the state a fixed fee of $500 per complaint resolved. The total amount available for reimbursement to CHRO is capped by the contract. The contract also includes a small amount of funding for line items such as training.  In FY 99, the workshare agreement stipulated CHRO would process and resolve 1,547 charges for a total of $773,500.

CHRO has a similar workshare agreement with HUD, which pays CHRO a fixed fee of $1,700 per case resolved. The FY99 HUD contract was for 74 charges for a total of $125,800. All federal revenues from both employment and housing cases are deposited directly into the state’s General Fund. Figure II-6 charts the federal revenues generated by CHRO federal charge processing for the last five state fiscal years.

As the graph shows, federal revenues increased significantly in the last two fiscal years. Until FY 98, federal revenues for case processing averaged about $550,000. In FY98, federal revenues increased 75 percent from the previous year.  CHRO reports this significant increase is due to a change in the contracted number of EEOC cases to be resolved which almost doubled from 938 charges in FY 97 to 1,810 in FY 98. The number of EEOC charges was decreased to 1,547 in the FY 99 contract. There has been little change in the number of HUD contracted number, which averages about 75 a year.

Staff Resources

As of June 30, 1999, the commission employed 98 full-time staff.  The distribution of staff by division is presented in Table II-1. As the table shows, the enforcement division has the largest percentage of employees consisting of 55 percent of the agency’s total  workforce.

Staffing trends. Figure II-7 presents CHRO staffing since FY 90. The figure shows staffing levels have fluctuated slightly over time. In FY 90, CHRO had 119 permanent full-time employees. By FY 94, the staffing level decreased to 96 and currently stands at 98. A closer examination of staff resources over this time period indicates the loss of staff was mostly clerical support and data processing. Enforcement staff has remained about the same.

Case Activities

To get an idea of the volume of business CHRO handles, Figure II-8 shows how many complaints were filed at CHRO each year over the last nine state fiscal years. From 1991 to 1995, the number of yearly complaints increased from 1533 to 2932, a 91 percent rise.  The biggest yearly jump was between 1991 and 1992, when the caseload increased by a third.  In the subsequent three years during the overall rise, the yearly increases were 11, 16, and 12 percent respectively.

 

As the figure shows, the number of incoming complaints dropped in 1996 to 2493, a 15 percent drop.  Complaints stayed at that same level through 1998 and fell by eight percent in 1999.  As previously indicated, enforcement staff levels stayed the same through the increase in caseload.

As mentioned earlier, CHRO has experienced problems with case backlogs.  Along with the trend in case filings, Figure II-9 shows the number of cases closed per year along with the cases that were pending action every year. As the figure indicates, from 1992 until 1995, the case closure numbers clearly were not keeping pace with the increasing caseload coming into the agency.  As there was already a pending caseload, this gap increased that amount and, as cases aged, added to a case backlog problem.  The significant increase in case closures between 1994 and 1995 may be attributed to the introduction of the MAR process discussed earlier, which is an early merit review allowing dismissals of cases deemed meritless under statutory standards.

 
Types of cases. Most complaints filed at CHRO pertain to employment.  Figure II-10 shows the breakdown by type for 1998, a typical year.  Employment cases accounted for about 92 percent of all the cases filed, with housing second at four percent and public accommodations cases third at three percent The top five factors or bases  cited in complaint cases for 1998 were: 1) Race (19.7%); 2) Sex (17.7%); 3) Color (13.9%); 4) Age (12.8%); and 5) Physical disability (12.1%). A caveat: More than one basis can be involved in any given case.