Officials at the Connecticut Department of Labor (DOL) have not assigned almost 1,000 complaints submitted to the Wage and Workplace Standards Division (WWSD) for investigation as of Sept. 15, 2025, according to a report from Connecticut State Auditors.  

This audit reviewed the DOL’s conduct during the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2023, and 2024.

The 980 complaints make up half of the roughly 2,000 complaints pending at the DOL as of Sept. 15, 2025, according to the report. This number is up 16% from May 11, 2023, which was reported in the DOL’s last audit.

“Case processing delays may deny wage earners timely complaint resolution and restitution of wages,” the audit states. “Extended delays may decrease the probability of collection in cases in which the employer ceases operations.”

This was one of seven problems that the auditors identified in the report, which was released on Thursday, May 21.

Auditors also identified pervasive issues with documentation. For example, DOL officials did not conduct a complete physical inventory in the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years.

“(The DOL) did not physically inventory 3,614 assets, totaling $23,683,698 in at least ten years,” the summary of the audit states.

Additionally, auditors randomly selected 12 civil penalty cases, with penalties that totaled $139,550, and found that all of the case files “lacked required documentation.” Additionally, seven of them did not have a supervisory approval for the penalty calculation, four of them did not have supporting documentation needed to justify how those civil penalties were calculated, and three of the cases were missing documentation for civil penalty modification. The auditors determined that this problem was a result of “inadequate management oversight.”

“Although that is an extremely small sample, the department agrees that civil penalties should be properly documented,” the DOL wrote in its response to this finding. “We have been actively working on improving the Civil Penalty modification process. Supervisors have been directed to communicate with their teams to enforce the eWage Manual’s instructions. Acting director and field supervisors are meeting regularly to continue to reinforce the process ensuring accuracy and proper documentation. WWSD is currently working on completing a refresher training on eWage for all supervisors.”

The missing documentation has implications for government transparency: when these documents are missing from files, it is harder to get ahold of them, if they exist, through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

There were other transparency problems as well.

The DOL has four boards, two commissions, and one council. Two of the boards—the Board of Labor Relations and the Employment Security Division Advisory Board (ESDAB)—did not file meeting schedules with the Secretary of State by January 31 in both 2023 and 2024, as is required by state statute. Neither of them posted meeting agendas during the audited period, and the ESDAB also did not post meeting minutes.

The Connecticut State Apprenticeship Council also did not submit its meeting schedule for 2023 and 2024 by the January 31 deadline.

The Joint Enforcement Commission on Employee Misclassification did not meet at all during the audited period.

This problem has been identified in the past seven audits of the DOL, which cover the fiscal years from 2009 to 2022.

The DOL only agreed with part of this finding.

“The agency will continue to work with the Boards over which it has jurisdiction to ensure compliance. Further, the Boards have all brought their postings up to date and will continue to do so,” the DOL wrote in its response. “Although the agency does not agree that it has responsibility over the Joint Enforcement Commission on Employee Misclassification, we will seek to have discussions with our partner agencies named in the statute, Department of Insurance, Office of the Attorney General, Department of Consumer Protection, Department of Revenue Services and the Workers’ Compensation Commission, to determine if the actions that are currently being taken by the agencies obviate the need to continue this Commission which has not met in many years.”

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