HARTFORD - It's a bad time for Diana Colorado's family to be dropped from her health insurance.

"My daughter's going to start treatment for diabetes," Colorado, a Norwalk resident who works as a cleaner at Norwalk Community College, said through a translator Monday.
Colorado is one of 600 janitors working in state buildings - including NCC, the University of Connecticut's Stamford campus and the Stamford railroad station - whose dependents as of Feb. 1 are going to lose health care coverage because of an existing state law.
According to Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, the situation has arisen because the state's so-called standard wage law has not kept pace with rising health care costs.
Under that law, workers employed under private contracts with the state receive benefits equal to 30 percent of their wages.

But that amount no longer covers costs of providing insurance for an entire family, so the union wants lawmakers to find more money to help foot the bill so the janitors' children will not lose their coverage.

But lawmakers are grappling with a $343 million budget deficit for the current fiscal year, along with a projected $6 billion shortfall for fiscal years 2009-10 and 2010-11.
Supporters of the janitors, including Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy, argue it will cost the state less to pay for the benefits than to cover the janitors' dependents, who would have to enroll with the state's HUSKY program for low-income children.
"This is a little penny-wise and pound-foolish," said Malloy, a Democrat who is considering a run for governor in 2010, after a Monday morning rally on behalf of Union Local 32BJ at the capitol.

The union estimates it would cost the state $1.6 million to add the janitor's families to HUSKY, versus $500,000 to allow them to keep current benefits.

State budget director Robert Genuario, of Norwalk, said his office is aware of the issue.
He was unable to comment on the figures provided by Union Local 32BJ but said legislators are free to amend the standard wage law.

"The administration is following the law as it stands today," he said.

New Speaker of the House Christopher Donovan, D-Meriden, in a brief interview Monday, said he is looking at the costs of maintaining the health coverage for the janitors' families.

"The preliminary figures I've seen show we can save money by subsidizing their health care," Donovan said.