Overtime for CT state employees costs taxpayers hundreds of millions. Here’s where and why

Hartford Courant – Sunday, March 23, 2025
By Christopher Keating

With overtime costs in the tens of millions in multiple departments, state officials are debating whether more workers should be hired in order to avoid expensive overtime rates.

The latest statistics from the state comptroller’s office show that the state spent $378 million for overtime during the 2024 calendar year across nearly 50 departments in state government.

The highest amounts were in the state prison system with $113 million in overtime, followed by the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services at $62 million and the state police at $60 million, according to the records.

Among the top 25 individuals with the most overtime, 17 work for the state police, while six work in mental health facilities. Three of the top five employees, at more than $230,000 each for overtime alone, work at the Whiting Forensic Institute, an inpatient psychiatric facility for those in the criminal justice system who require 24-hour care and have been committed by the Psychiatric Security Review Board or need to have their competency restored before trial.

Including their base salaries, the top five overtime employees last year received total compensation of more than $380,000 each. The highest-paid was a state police dog handler, Bruce LaChance, who received $439,000 overall, including the highest amount of overtime at $303,000. Through the years, he has handled dogs who search for fleeing suspects and missing persons at all hours of the day and night.

Lawmakers were surprised to learn that nearly 1,700 state employees in all departments were paid more than $50,000 in overtime alone, while nearly 2,600 employees earned more than $40,000 in overtime in addition to their salaries.

Gov. Ned Lamont said his administration is trying to hire more workers in certain areas where overtime is being racked up in the millions.

“We’re trying like heck to get more troopers, more corrections officers, more nurses — those places where you do see an awful lot of overtime,” Lamont said when asked by The Courant. “We’re prioritizing that in terms of hiring. In other places, we’re not hiring as fast just to keep an eye on the budget.”

With retirements on a regular basis, the number of troopers fluctuates depending largely on how quickly new troopers can be hired and complete the training academy. Some candidates drop out even before ever reaching the road. The next class of state troopers will graduate April 3 with only 21 new troopers, much smaller than in some years.

“I think we have more troopers than we did when we took office,” Lamont said outside his Capitol office. “Remember, a lot of folks retired given the pension change a few years ago. But we’re ramping up now. The classes are not as big as I’d like them to be. They got a big raise. I gave them a pretty good-sized raise a few years ago to help us recruiting.”

The state legislature voted in 2023 for a new, four-year contract that provides annual pay raises for troopers because many would-be troopers have been recruited by municipal police departments. With the state police lagging behind some other departments, the trooper trainee salaries were increased by 35% over several years. The trainees are now earning $67,279, up from $50,000 in the past.

Police recruiting has been difficult, advocates say, after anti-police rallies were held nationwide following the May 2020 death of George Floyd while handcuffed in police custody in Minneapolis. Scrutiny of police increased with bills passed around the country, including Connecticut, that many police officers said made their jobs more difficult on issues like police chases and searches.

When asked whether the state has had recruiting problems in the post-George Floyd era, Lamont said, “We have more state police today than we had when I took office, but we have a long way to go. Municipal police is sort of different — department by department. We need cops. We need them more than ever.”

The high amount of overtime at the mental health department is related mainly to nurses working at the state’s mental health hospitals, Whiting and Connecticut Valley Hospital, which are both in Middletown. Amid a nationwide nursing shortage, the hospitals are paying overtime to nurses in order to fill shifts, officials said. In addition, the staffing ratios need to be higher for the patients who have more complex needs than those in general hospitals, officials said. Connecticut Valley is the largest operation in the mental health department with 974 full-time equivalent employees, while Whiting has 493 employees.

The overtime is sometimes related to one-on-one care for psychiatric patients who might be suicidal or in danger of harming other patients or staff members. In addition, costs increase sharply when double-time rates are paid to staff members who are required to work if a fellow worker calls in sick, for example.

Statewide belt tightening on overtime

With overtime increasing, Lamont is pulling back on expenses because the state is in danger of breaking through the spending cap in the current fiscal year that ends on June 30.

Budget director Jeffrey Beckham recently sent a memo to all agency heads that said officials will closely scrutinize filling jobs in all categories: full-time, part-time, temporary, and durational. Filling positions is being done on a case-by-case basis, but key spots like corrections officers in the prisons are still being filled.

“Overtime must be monitored very closely in order to make reductions to the greatest extent possible,” Beckham wrote. “Agency heads should ensure that the approval process for overtime is being made at the appropriate levels. In the coming weeks, my office will schedule meetings on at least a quarterly basis with those agencies with significant overtime expenditures in order to review actions taken to mitigate these expenditures.”

At the state police, Commissioner Ronnell Higgins says overtime is dropping by a projected 8%.

“We are committed to reducing overtime costs, but we also have overtime needs in the field and on the road,” Higgins said. “We must make sure patrols are adequately staffed and that all investigations receive the resources they need.”

With about 900 troopers, the state police still has about 200 vacancies.

In order to reduce overtime, Higgins has commissioned a comprehensive overview to get troopers out of their offices and onto the highways.

“We are currently conducting a comprehensive internal analysis to determine which jobs at DESPP could be done by other trained professionals and then to identify how we can reposition troopers into the field,” Higgins said. “We want to place our troopers in the highest and best use possible. We are also looking at new ways to leverage technology so troopers can spend more time on the road, instead of spending their time focused on administrative tasks. We see many emerging technologies as ‘force multipliers,’ which will increase our ability to respond effectively and efficiently. Together, these initiatives will help to reduce overtime costs.”

As the belt-tightening stretches across state government due to Lamont’s concerns about the spending cap, the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition has already weighed in concerning the modified hiring curtailments at a time when staffing is already tight.

“The work of our public workers is even more critical, but too many agencies are already facing crisis-level staffing shortages,” said Drew Stoner, spokeswoman for SEBAC. “This unnecessary hiring freeze is a direct result of the governor’s fanatic interpretation of our fiscal policies that is irresponsibly siphoning off billions from the programs and services our residents need now.”

Overtime history

Overtime totals for the state police have jumped sharply through the years to $60 million in 2024, up from $26.2 million during the 2019 fiscal year and $19.7 million during the 2018 fiscal year, according to state statistics.

The bipartisan state auditors conducted a detailed study of state police overtime in 2020 that showed that some troopers could double and nearly triple their salaries through overtime.

At Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, the auditors found that 56% of troopers in the various barracks surveyed had earned more money in overtime than in their base salaries. The base salaries ranged as high as $83,000 at the time, and the amount of overtime ranged as high as $190,000 per year, the audit said. The overtime effectively equaled 100% to 244% of their base salaries, the report said.

While the overtime is highly lucrative for the troopers, the report also said that too much work can lead to fatigue and lower performance. The report showed more than 3,000 instances when troopers worked 15 hours per day and nearly 400 instances when they worked 10 days in a row with no days off. The work ranged as high as 84 consecutive days with no time off, the report said.

“In addition to the fiscal costs, performance can suffer if employees are overtired and inattentive,” the report said. “This may expose [state police] and the public to risks due to errors and mistakes. Moreover, working long hours for multiple days increases the risk of fatigue, health problems, and injuries.”

Trooper history

The auditors recommended that Lamont and the legislature work with state police to “increase its staffing levels and ensure that it can meet scheduling requirements without incurring significant overtime costs. The department should also implement controls to prevent employees from working excessive overtime shifts and consecutive days.”

Today, five years after the audit, the number of troopers remains about the same.

The battle over the number of troopers has lasted for years and has involved a court fight and a staffing study of the agency. During the tenure of then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, the troopers filed a civil lawsuit to stop layoffs and enforce the mandatory minimum in state law of 1,248 troopers on the force. That minimum was stripped out during the Malloy years in a budget-implementation bill that was not immediately apparent as lawmakers were racing to pass one of the largest, most multi-faceted bills of the legislative session.

Through the years, attrition has been an issue. In 2020, for example, state police made 127 offers to incoming candidates, leading to 120 rookies starting in the academy, officials said. But only 83 graduated because many dropped out due to the rigorous training process.

Many troopers retired by July 1, 2022 — when changes in the cost-of-living adjustments in state pensions prompted a large number of retirements.

State Senate Republican leader Stephen Harding of Brookfield said that hiring more employees could be the solution.If there’s a way in which we could potentially hire more within the department and still spend less money, I think it’s the very obvious solution to all of this. When you’re spending that much in overtime, and you hear that there’s a shortage of state police officers and I believe a shortage of correctional officers as well, it renders us to potentially hire more.””]

Harding added, “When you’re spending at the rate we’re spending on overtime, that [hiring] actually may be economically beneficial to us.”

Concerning the same theme mentioned in an audit five years ago, Harding says he is concerned that long hours and excessive overtime can lead to fatigue.

“As alert as you may be, and our troopers are some of the best men and women out there, it’s human nature that you’re going to be tired,” Harding said. “You may not be as alert as you can be. These are all factors that we have to consider. Our trooper numbers have been significantly reduced, and they’ve never been restored. This highlights the necessity to hire more troopers. It’s a public safety issue, and it’s also potentially costing us more money to hire less troopers. If that’s the case, then I think we have our answer: We need to hire more. I’d have to get official data and crunch the numbers. But all logic would dictate we should be hiring more troopers.”

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