(100) Days of Comptrolling

5 min readApr 13, 2023

Today marks 100 days since I became State Comptroller so I decided to put together a quick look back.

Doing so reminded me how proud I am to serve in this role and to have the opportunity to help make a difference in the lives of some many throughout our state.

So, here’s my first 100 days in pictures!

January 4

Inauguration Day was simultaneously one of the most special and surreal days of my life. Aside from the picture up top of my son Jack sticking his tongue out while I got sworn in, this one (taken by a National Guard photographer I didn't know was there!) of me giving my wife Meghan a quick kiss before the ceremony is my favorite.

January 17

During the campaign I told voters that, if elected, I was going to do this job a bit differently. Yes, I spend most of my time in the office but I also spend time during the week on the road promoting the things our office does that most people don’t know about because no one has been promoting them.

The biggest example of that is MyCTSavings, the public retirement plan run by the Comptroller in which Connecticut businesses with five or more employees can offer their employees a retirement plan at no cost. It’s a great program that very few people knew about. With an enrollment deadline coming up on March 30, my office and I started visiting different small businesses in different cities and towns to promote the plan.

It worked.

On the day I got sworn in, we had only 876 businesses registered. On the day of the deadline, we had 3,436 — a 292% increase.

January 24

The other big focus of my first few weeks was Premium Pay. This program, also known as Hero Pay, was created by the legislature as a way to thank Connecticut’s essential workers who worked on the front lines of COVID. Think nurses, grocery store employees and child care workers to name a few.

On January 24th I went to Stop & Shop in Middletown to announce that the checks would start going out from my office on February 1.

January 31

A week later I went to Amazon — another major employer whose employees qualified for the program — to announce we were able to expedite the program so that payments would go out over two weeks instead of six.

152,306 Connecticut frontline workers received payments over the next few weeks from our office.

February 9

I learn by seeing, doing and talking to people. It made me a better State Representative and I know it will make me a better Comptroller.

For National Pizza Day, I learned how to make a pizza at Bro’s Dough in Hartford, one of the first businesses to enroll in MyCTSavings.

February 21

Health care is an issue I care deeply about and a big part of what we do in the Comptroller’s office. As the administrator of the largest employer-based health care plan in Connecticut, I’m focused on ensuring our state employees, family members and retirees have access to good health care while also finding savings.

But I’m also focused on how to do that for everyone in Connecticut. That’s what I did in the legislature and what I spend a lot of time on as Comptroller.

On February 21 I joined Governor Lamont to discuss a proposal we are working on together where my office would create a Drug Discount Card available for all Connecticut residents that would help them save money at the pharmacy counter.

February 27

I took my learning by seeing and doing mantra to a new level by instituting #CompTime in which I try and shadow a different state employee each month to see firsthand the work they do.

Why? Well, for starters, I think it’s important to showcase the (often under-appreciated) work they do each day for our state. But it’s also simpler than that: I sign each state employee’s paycheck each two weeks and I believe anyone who signs an employees check should be familiar with what they do to earn it. So, #CompTime.

I spent a day in January at the State Police Academy shadowing recruits and, when it finally snowed, I spent a night in a DOT plow truck with a great guy name Greg as he plowed I-91.

March 16

As the deadline for MyCTSavings approached, I did a one-day blitz across Connecticut to visit small businesses like Pol Mart in New Britain’s Little Poland.

As of that week, we had signed up just under 2,000 businesses. In the next two weeks, almost 1,400 more would register.

April 8

It’s not every day that you get to march in a parade and stand on stage as your beloved basketball team celebrates a National Championship but I got to this year! Grabbed a quick selfie with the Governor that was (in a good way) photo-bombed by the LG and Secretary of the State.