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For the past four decades, Susan Keane has helped to shape Connecticut’s schools and communities, health care and social programs, transportation systems and environment.

Few people noticed.

In many ways the behind-the-scenes chief architect of the state’s budget adoption process, Keane has piloted dozens of legislatures through the labyrinthine task of crafting the multibillion plans that guide so much of life here.

Whether shepherding hundreds of bills, overseeing months of public hearings, arranging research or preserving records, Keane has been the one constant in a process in perpetual flux.

But when the General Assembly convenes its next regular session on Feb. 4, Keane — for the first time in 43 years — won’t be there.

The recently retired senior administrator of the Appropriations Committee leaves an overarching legacy as the model of nonpartisan support that drives democracy, as a fierce advocate for public access and as a trainer to countless staff, legislators and lobbyists.

I feel I have an obligation to make that process as open to the general public as the joint rules will allow.

Susan Keane

Keane, 69, who stepped down in late November due to health issues, will be missed for her sharp Irish wit and fiery red hair — not to mention a deep appreciation for music and dance.

“The genuine calmness under pressure, being precise without being rigid, and being deeply respectful to people at every level,” Taylor Aitken of Lebanon, who succeeds Keane, said of her mentor. “She made people feel, whatever question you came to her with, that you mattered. You don’t replace someone like Susan. You carry forward what she’s built.”

“She will be missed by people who never even experienced her,” said Sen. Gary Winfield, a New Haven Democrat and veteran member of the Appropriations Committee. “Her role wasn’t just the committee administrator. Her role was the thread who ties through everything.”

Open, accessible government comes first

The “everything” that Keane tried to preserve was nothing less than Connecticut’s legislative process, from the smallest proposal to the $27.2 billion spending plan lawmakers approved last June for the current fiscal year.

“My philosophy was always to be the ultimate facilitator of moving bills properly,” Keane said. “That’s the bottom line. That’s my north star, the process of good government.”

By far the most grueling of legislative committees, Appropriations has 12 subcommittees and, at any given time, several other affiliated working groups or task forces.

In the final weeks of the legislative session, leaders negotiate a budget with the governor’s staff, a process that can take weeks or months, marked by days that start mid-morning and end well after midnight.

Sue Keane [was] the person who operated the nuclear power plant and never allowed it to melt down.

Spencer Cain, state fiscal analyst

Proposals offered in the middle of the night often must be ready for a vote within a day.

“Many people likened Sue Keane to the person who kept the trains running on time,” said Spencer Cain, a state fiscal analyst for three decades prior to his retirement in 2009. “But I likened Sue Keane to the person who operated the nuclear power plant and never allowed it to melt down.”

For Keane, “good government” goes way beyond keeping good records and facilitating legislators’ research. It involves linking residents with their government.

That means given people access to public records — even if state officials prefer otherwise, said Betty Gallo, a lobbyist for more than 40 years who retired in 2018.

“If she could possibly give [a budget document] to me, she gave it to me,” Gallo said. “She never said ‘I don’t have time,’ or ‘I’m not going to get that, it’s too much trouble.’”

But Keane was better known for making face-to-face connections happen.

That means everyone gets a chance to testify before legislators. If special technology, unconventional hours or other adjustments must be made, so be it.

People with mental illness might not be able to stay long in a crowded hearing room. And if so, others — including state officials — might have to wait for their chance to speak with the committee.

“I feel I have an obligation to make that process as open to the general public as the joint rules will allow,” Keane said. “And that’s one of the things that I’m most proud of.”

Regardless of the logistics, “she always made it work,” said Rep. Toni E. Walker, a New Haven Democrat and current House chair of the Appropriations Committee who said Keane clearly loved the challenge. “And you could see her wheels turning. Her right hand would start going like she was pounding out a beat in her mind.”

Never one to shrink from a challenge

Not shrinking from a challenge was a virtue instilled in Keane by some of her earliest mentors.

Born Susan Ann Keane in June 1959 on Capitol Avenue in Hartford, just a few minutes from gold-domed building that would dominate her career, she would learn from her father, John, that a polite joke and a smile can turn back many aggressive people.

“I can dish as well as I can be served,” she said.

She spent most of her childhood just east of the Connecticut River, graduating from Manchester High School before attending the University of Hartford, where she learned about a Capitol internship.

Not intending to work in government but thinking it could be interesting, she decided to try.

Her compassion and empathy transcended the legislative process.

Vincent J. Candelora, House Minority Leader

After two years of assisting Rep. Thom Serrani of Stamford, then co-chair of the Transportation Committee, he asked her to remain on as clerk. Keane accepted but had no interest in “the money committees” because they “used to kill all of the transportation bills.”

That changed in 1983 term when “my legislative godmother,” Secretary of the State Julia Tashjian, insisted Keane drop her grudge and interview to clerk the Appropriations Committee.

After five minutes with that group’s House chair, Waterford Democrat Janet Polinsky, Keane was hooked for life.

“Janet and I clicked immediately, like a bolt of lightning struck, and I don’t say that lightly,” she said.

Keane loved Polinsky’s insistence on inclusiveness, respect for the governor down to the most obscure staffer, and zero tolerance for those disrespectful to rank-and-file workers.

If lobbyists or politicians sought a meeting with Polinsky, Keane said, “She would look at me and say: ‘Do we like them?’ And that was Janet’s code for, ‘Are they good to you?’”

Though also protective of staff, Keane shies away from confrontations.

Though she likes being called “Susan” and “cherishes” being named after her grandmother, Keane says nothing when many at the Capitol call her “Sue” because “I’m uncomfortable correcting people.”

Her desk is the building’s unofficial “therapy room,” Aitken said. Gallo occasionally found excuses to visit the Appropriations Committee office, just to run into Keane. “She was one of those people, when you have a bad day, you would just drop by,” Gallo said. “You’d feel better when you left. And that’s not a small skill.”

‘Lucy and Ethel’ of the General Assembly

Still, there was one type of friction Keane always relished: between Appropriations and its opposite number, the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee. One group figures out how government spends money, the other how it raises it.

House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, who spent most of his career on Finance said Appropriations — which hears countless impassioned pleas from program advocates seeking funding — is often called the “feeling committee.” Those on Finance, though, are members of the “thinking committee.”

But Candelora says no one is held in higher respect than Keane.

“Her compassion and empathy transcended the legislative process,” he added.

Keane appreciated Candelora’s praise but said he’s wrong about the two committees.

“Despite what Finance thinks, Appropriations is the most unique committee in the legislature,” she said. “That’s gospel, my friend.”

Ironically, Keane’s closest friend during her legislative career was Mary Finnegan of South Windsor, senior administrator of the Finance Committee for most of her 37-year career until her retirement in 2014.

“For a good year, I felt like I was missing a piece of me” after Finnegan left, Keane said.

She made sure that [the governor’s staff] and the committee were able to work through all our differences and learn to respect one another.

Ben Barnes, budget director for former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy

Both hold the legislative process and public access in the highest regard. Neither suffer fools gladly.

For decades, legislative leaders called upon both senior administrators to train new staff, new legislators and lobbyists, a job for which Keane was perfect.

“She was definitely a feeler,” Finnegan said. “She was very supportive of people. She formed relationships.”

In the 1980s and ’90s, when the legislature hosted huge parties in the Capitol shortly after the session’s midnight adjournment, Keane and Finnegan were the chief organizers.

“We were like the hostess with the most-est,” Finnegan said, adding that Keane, an accomplished Irish step dancer, “could cut a rug.”

But none, Finnegan added, could match Keane’s encyclopedic knowledge of music, whether classical, big band, jazz, pop, rock or hip-hop.

The duo, because of their camaraderie and similar passions, became known as “Lucy and Ethel,” though it never was entirely clear who was who.

Keane shared Lucille Ball’s red hair, but modestly insists Finnegan, like Lucy, “was the alpha.”

It mattered little. Both women insist the other was the consummate friend and public servant. And no challenge was so great it could withstand their combined efforts.

“Do you have time to meet me at the railing?” was code, Keane said, for meeting on an upper floor of the Legislative Office Building, “consoling one another, solving the world’s problems.”

Avoiding partisanship – but not laughter

But despite her passion for work, Keane found time to enjoy the Capitol’s lighter moments.

Former House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero, a Norwalk Republican who retired in 2016, recalled at least one time Keane allowed a huge break in her focused demeanor during a committee meeting. But it took a highly atypical topic: whether to fund a new state ranger to monitor flocks of free-range chickens.

“I think I blurted out, ‘There’s a post you don’t see at the job fair in high school,’” Cafero told the Connecticut Mirror. “She just lost it. She had to literally excuse herself from the room. When she came back, she sat down — and lost it again.”

Superior Court Judge Robert Genuario, a Norwalk Republican who spent a more than a decade in the Senate and on Appropriations in the 1990s and 2000s, credits Keane’s sense of humor with averting a budget crisis in 1995.

With Republicans holding the Senate for the first time in a decade and Democrats the House, both entered the final days of the session agreeing on spending for health care, education and other core programs while lowering taxes one year down the road.

But they couldn’t decide which chamber and party would get to adopt the new budget first.

It’s critical that we maintain that sense of objectivity, which sometimes flies in the face of being human.

Susan Keane

Keane, whose committee staffed those negotiations, “just started laughing like it was nobody’s business,” Genuario said. “All of these weighty issues that impact people in their daily lives, and we got stuck on … inside baseball.”

But it was her laughter that showed legislators their stubbornness, Genuario said, adding the House got the first vote and Connecticut got its tax break.

 “It strikes me as indicative of her ability to respect all people … not to take sides, but pave the way for a good working environment,” he said.

Keane also refused to be adversarial with the Executive Branch, said Ben Barnes, who was Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s budget director from 2011 through 2018.

“As much as anyone, she made sure that [the governor’s staff] and the committee were able to work through all our differences and learn to respect one another,” he said.

Keane could work with anyone who respected her allegiance to an open and fair legislative process, said New Haven Democrat Bill Dyson, who served 32 years in the legislature through 2008 and co-chaired the Appropriations Committee for much of that time.

She was the glue that sort of held everything together.

Former Sen. Toni Harp, D-New Haven

“She had a certain aura about her work that was beneficial,” he said. “Once you knew she was serious, she was easy to get along with. You do what you’re supposed to do.”

But there was one time Keane found it hard to remain silent as others debated issues.

Her son, Daniel, is on the autism spectrum, and Keane recalled a debate in the early 2010s over whether to increase funding for mental health supports.

At the urging of Sen. Toni Harp, a New Haven Democrat and co-chairwoman of Appropriations at the time, Keane agreed to share with legislators the challenges, “the journey” her son and family faced. But that was it.

“That was the hardest thing for me,” she said, but as a nonpartisan staffer, “it’s critical that we maintain that sense of objectivity, which sometimes flies in the face of being human.”

Harp said Keane’s dedication to her role was unmatched. “She just knew all the rules,” Harp said. “She was the glue that sort of held everything together.”

COVID presented the ultimate test

Keane faced one of her greatest challenges in March 2020 when the General Assembly closed its regular session two months early with the coronavirus’ arrival. Although leaders planned to reconvene the 2021 session on time the following January, it soon became clear that most residents wouldn’t be vaccinated by then.

Legislators needed safe access to their constituents and to each other, but the heart of committee work — public hearings, orderly debate and voting — had to be preserved.

Keane, who says she was cursed with “lousy gene pools” and has battled Bell’s palsy, heart disease, and sleep apnea, feared for herself, other legislative staffers and for their family members who might be infected through second-hand exposure.

But when legislative leaders tasked her with developing new procedures for all committees, she also saw an opportunity to deliver a more open government long after the COVID outbreak slowed.

“This idea of expanding access to people has been percolating in my head for decades,” she added.

Remote online hearings, once considered unwieldy at best and unworkable at worst, became possible.

The legislature increased its reliance on The Connecticut Network, its 24-hour cable television and internet news service that records countless events at the Capitol and Legislative Office Building. Meanwhile, Keane created numerous YouTube channels to serve the committees.

Procedures were created to allow remote constituent testimony. And the voting process was deliberately slowed to allow each legislator in remote attendance to first show their face on camera, state their name, and then cast their vote.

Her legacy is woven into the building.

Taylor Aitken, incoming senior administrator of appropriations committee

Lawmakers often forgot one step or another at first in a voting process that already could get complicated quickly by amendments and other special rules.

Keane steered them back gently but relentlessly, part operatic conductor, part Simon Says leader.

“Are you on [camera] yet?” was a common response to lawmakers who tried to vote remotely with sound on but camera off. “I know you’re trying.”

When Rep. Tammy Nuccio, R-Tolland, once got confused and addressed Keane as the “chairwoman” of the committee, the senior administrator smiled and said, “Why thank you, madame” for the promotion.

But those changes took hold, and now most committees operate in hybrid fashion, allowing remote or in-person attendance, something Walker said has greatly improved attendance and facilitated scheduling.

Finnegan said only Keane could have developed that new system — and kept legislators from rejecting it. “She is incredibly creative,” Finnegan said. “I kept watching it on TV saying, ‘I would kill myself.’ That was a tremendous load of work. … She was the go-to person.”

Finding time for family, leaving a legacy

Finnegan also marveled that Keane, despite carrying a weekly workload that often exceeded 70 or 80 hours, found time for family.

Keane met her husband, Vincent Mazzotta, when he represented Portland and Cromwell in the House of Representatives in the late 1980s. They married in 1993, years after he had left General Assembly. Besides their son, they also have a daughter.

And though Keane lives in nearby East Hartford, she said her family sometimes sacrificed because she couldn’t get home soon enough.

“There were concerts and plays that were missed,” she said. “They went to bed without being tucked in by their mom, having a story read or getting a good night kiss. And that took a toll.”

But when the legislative session was over, Keane said, everything took a back seat to family.

There were frequent vacations to Cape Cod, “which is our favorite place on earth,” and lots of “unstructured time” that was just about being together.  “There were days we didn’t get out of our pajamas,” she said. “There were times we had what we called a ‘totally chocolate dinner.'”

“You can never recapture what was lost, but you can find a way to make memories, and I worked very hard to do that for my children.”

Legislators knew how many priorities Keane juggled for years, Candelora said, adding they couldn’t resent their workloads when they saw how she handled hers, day after day.

“She always set the tone with a smile,” he said.

Keane’s example and dedication, Aitken added, is as much her legacy as the knowledge she shared with so many, or the budgets and countless other bills she helped legislators produce.

“Her legacy is woven into the building,” she added. “If you worked in the legislature or adjacent, there’s a very good chance you learned something from Susan.”