The Yankee Institute for Public Policy has unveiled an impressive new website – CTSunlight.org – to track how state government spent your tax dollars in 2007 and 2008.
The group’s press release is pretty savvy, leading with the following sentence:
“HARTFORD – The Connecticut Department of Corrections hired Huggles the Clown for $600.”
Sure enough, I was able to find Huggles listed in the database for the DOC, conveniently under vendors beginning with the letter “H.”
I sent Brian Garnett, a DOC spokesman, an e-mail confirming Huggles’ hiring. Here’s what Brian had to say:
“This was a very different economic time. We in the past had held a Christmas party for the families of our staff who sacrifice throughout the year with our staff’s 24/7 work schedule, missing holidays, birthdays, etc. The clown was hired for that party. The party was not held last year.”
The biggest clown in DOC is Brian Murphy. His departure is LONG overdue. A disgraceful waste of taxpayer money.
Comment by Phil Barell — February 11th, 2010 @ 11:21 pm
Watch it, Phil….clown union may come after you
Comment by Paco — February 15th, 2010 @ 5:29 pm