McCaw Expected to Depart Lamont Administration.
Office of Policy and Management (OPM) Secretary Melissa McCaw’s departure from the Lamont administration is imminent, Daily Ructions has learned. McCaw has held the job of budget chief since Lamont took office in January 2019. McCaw previously served as Hartford’s finance director. She leaves under fraught circumstances of a federal criminal investigation of two programs she oversaw in her agency and her charges of abuse by Lamont’s inner circle.
The Middletown resident made a serious error when she insisted that Kostostinos Diamantis be appointed as her deputy budget director and–in what may turn out to be a destructive decision for Lamont himself–insisted he be allowed to bring his school construction portfolio with him from the Department of Administrative Services (DAS). At least one close adviser to Lamont raised serious and specific objections to the appointment of Diamantis to a position in the heart of the administration, directly beneath McCaw in chain of command. No one would listen. The school construction program, the State Pier project in New London, and Diamantis are the focus of a federal criminal investigation. Diamantis has denied any wrongdoing.
Diamantis left both his state jobs at the end of October 2021, weeks after I revealed in my Hartford Courant that Chief State’s Attorney Richard Collangelo had hired Diamantis’s daughter as a $99,000 a year executive assistant. Diamantis claimed he was the target of Lamont’s inner circle because he defended McCaw against attacks from the governor’s office.
As revelations of alleged corruption in the school construction continue, it has become clear that McCaw failed in her fundamental responsibility to supervise Diamantis in any meaningful way.
McCaw provided an effusive welcome to Diamantis in an email to OPM employees in 2019:
I am pleased to announce the appointment of Konstantinos “Kosta” Diamantis as Deputy Secretary for the Office of Policy and Management.
Kosta brings a unique and diverse background and skillset to his position as Deputy Secretary, with over 30 years of experience combined in the public and private sectors; practicing law, serving in the state legislature, and most recently, working at the Department of Administrative Services. Throughout these experiences, he has developed a deep understanding of the legal, legislative, policy, financial, and operational functions of state government and his role in strategic negotiations makes him uniquely qualified to support me and the Office of Policy and Management.
“Uniquely qualified” may take on a new meaning as targets of the school construction corruption investigation begin to enter into pleas as the investigation begins to reap its harvest in public.
Published February 24, 2022.