The Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP) did not adequately manage or control overtime claims in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, according to a recent audit from the Auditors of Public Accounts.

The audit, which flagged nine areas where the agency is not complying with the law that were continued from a previous audit, found that DESPP has not updated its time and attendance policies since 2006 and 2012, despite adopting a new program in 2020.

Auditors reviewed the shift logs of 30 troopers who worked 1,618 overtime hours on 11 days. They found DESPP did not maintain adequate attendance records for 220.5 hours of overtime earned by 13 troopers on 27 days.

“The troopers earned 220.5 hours of overtime but only worked 144.5 hours of overtime per the day sheets and 114.5 hours of overtime per the biweekly overtime reports.” the audit found. Due to discrepancies in attendance records, they were not able to determine how many overtime hours were worked.

Additionally, auditors reviewed 1,341.25 hours of special overtime worked by 25 troopers on 143 days. For 1,051 of those hours, auditors found DESPP did not have adequate records for overtime used by 20 troopers on 109 days. DESPP was also unable to provide auditors with 12 special duty request forms for 12 troopers using 763.5 hours of overtime and special overtime reports for five troopers using 220.5 hours of special duty overtime, as well as supporting documentation for numerous other overtime claims and work schedules.

In total, auditors found 1,474 DESPP employees earned $103,545,646 for 1,543,752 overtime hours, spanning 15 departments.

According to auditors, the departments outdated policies and procedures and insufficient record keeping increase the risk of inaccurate overtime reporting and could lead to improper overtime payments, which in turn could “have short-term impacts on the DESPP budget and long-term costs to the state because most overtime is included in the calculation of retirement benefits.” Auditors also stated that performance could suffer if employees are “overtired and inattentive,” which could expose the public to “errors and mistakes.”

Auditors suggested a lack of managerial oversight could be to blame for outdated attendance policies and a failure to comply with the state’s records retention schedule. They also found that excessive use of overtime was likely the result of a lack of staffing and a delay in filling open positions. Connecticut has suffered from a state trooper shortage for years. In 2023, as state troopers negotiated a new contract with the state, Connecticut State Police had approximately 880 state troopers. Management stated they need 1,150 to staff shifts and reduce overtime spending.

DESPP agreed with the audit’s finding and stated the issue was in part due to their adoption of new scheduling software during the COVID-19 pandemic, which made “acquiring subject matter expertise at the agency level difficult to obtain” and made implementing it difficult.

In addition, the audit found DESPP overpaid two employees a total of $141,096 in recurring bi-weekly payments for retroactive pay and for on call/standby pay. It also found DESPP did not immediately deactivate seven terminated employees’ access to a statewide criminal justice system that gives various local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies access to files. DESPP terminated access for those employees between one year and 25 days and two years and 20 days after the employees had been fired.

Additionally, auditors found DESPP did not use the state’s asset management system to account for over 5,000 weapons it owns and could not track cost, acquisition, and disposal information for its weapons. There was a roughly $1.8 million difference between DESPP’s weapon inventory records and the state’s accounting system that the agency could not account for.

Republish This Story

Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.