Former Chief of Staff and current Senior Advisor to Gov. Ned Lamont Jonathan Dach recorded himself working a full day in the office while utilizing the Office of the Governor’s state vehicle to travel to Albany for the swearing in of Judge Rowan Wilson to the New York Court of Appeals, according to a comparison of state vehicle usage and Dach’s timesheets.

Dach has acknowledged traveling to Albany on Tuesday, September 12, 2023, for the swearing in ceremony — a personal trip — and state vehicle travel records show the car leaving Dach’s residence in the morning, traveling to Albany, and then arriving at the Capitol a little after 3:30 in the afternoon. 

Nevertheless, Dach, who was paid $215,036 in 2023, recorded eight hours of regular in-office time as part of his submitted time sheets.

It is not the only instance in which Dach recorded regular in office time for 8 hours, as opposed to recording telecommuting time, or “REGTC,” when the state vehicle was used to visit various known associates of Dach, according to a cross comparison of Dach’s work calendar, submitted time sheets, and state vehicle use data obtained under Freedom of Information requests.

State vehicle records for the Office of the Governor do not indicate who was driving one of two vehicles at any given time, but some of the travel corresponds with notations in Dach’s calendar.

Vehicle data shows the state car was used to travel from the Capitol to a street near Dach’s New Haven residence on Tuesday July 11, 2023, where it was parked for the night. The next day the vehicle then traveled to Atlantic City, New Jersey for a meeting of the National Governor’s Association, which is marked off in Dach’s calendar. 

The vehicle then leaves Atlantic City on Friday and stops in Brooklyn, New York at roughly 12.30 p.m. where it stays for the remainder of the weekend. Dach’s calendar shows no meetings past 12:15 p.m. that Friday, yet time sheets show a full eight-hour workday.

On March 1, 2024, the state vehicle left from a street near Dach’s residence, traveled to Guilford where it sat for 1.5 hours and then traveled to Hartford, reaching the capitol roughly around 1 p.m. when Dach’s calendar shows his first meeting of the day. Dach logged eight hours of office time that day, according to time sheets.

Similarly, on the afternoon of Thursday, September 12, 2024, the state vehicle made numerous stops in the New Haven area, including at the residence of a known friend of Dach’s, the PEZ Visitor Center, Modern Pizza, and Yale Farm, before leaving New Haven and parking near Dach’s Hartford residence at 4:30 p.m. 

Dach’s calendar shows three meetings that day, concluding with a 4 p.m. in-person meeting of the Governor’s Workforce Council at Gateway Community College in New Haven. Dach recorded eight hours of in-office work time that day. 

While work time is measured in hours, rather than full days, there appear to have been ten occasions between January 2023 and January 2024 when Dach may have logged work time when he was not in the office and possibly conducting personal business. 

State vehicles are outfitted with electronic monitoring devices that record locations, distances, and speeds, according to information obtained and previously published by Inside Investigator. On several occasions, the vehicle was tracked going over 100 miles per hour on state highways, although it is unknown who was driving at the time. The governor’s office has previously indicated it appears there was some personal use of the vehicle, and they hired an outside attorney to investigate.

Dach was Lamont’s chief of staff from January of 2023 until July of 2024 when Matthew Brokman took over as chief of staff and Dach became a senior advisor to Lamont, and while chief of staff can be a grueling position requiring long hours, Dach’s work calendar shows a remarkably steep drop off in meetings following the job change.

Between July 3 and December 31 of 2024, which includes 124 state working days, Dach took 30 days of vacation and paid leave time, according to time sheets, after taking hardly any vacation time the previous year while he was working as chief of staff.

Of the remaining 96 days in which Dach is listed as working full days on his time sheets, his calendar shows either zero meetings or one meeting for 39 of those days.

For instance, the week of September 16-22, 2024, shows no meetings on Monday, Tuesday, or Friday of that week for Dach, while recording full in-office workdays on his timesheet; November 4-10, 2024, shows no meetings Monday and Tuesday, and only one meeting on Friday while marking down full telecommuting workdays on his timesheet.

Thirty-seven of those days are listed as “telecommuting,” mostly toward the end of the year. Upon taking his role as senior policy advisor, it was reported that Dach was moving to New York City. Gov. Lamont has pushed for state employees, who have been allowed to largely work from home under a COVID-era labor agreement, to return to the office.  

Dach earned a reported $204,772 in 2024, according to state payroll data, and is projected to earn $183,911 in 2025. When taking into account his salary for 2024, Dach earned $34,567 in salary for 39 days in which he had zero or one meeting, or $1,571 per day.

Reached for comment, Rob Blanchard, director of communications for the Office of the Governor, said Dach’s position requires around the clock work, that doesn’t necessarily line up with a typical eight-hour work day.

“Jonny’s position, like many in the Governor’s office can be demanding or even 24/7 job. In his newer role, Jonny’s focus has been untangling complex state issues and projects, including finding ways to lower the cost of energy, evaluating the future of state-owned properties to ensure they’re put to the best use—including significant transit-oriented development projects, and representing the Governor on the University of Connecticut Board of Trustees,” Blanchard wrote in an emailed statement. “Whether meetings are conducted virtually, over the phone, in person or on the road, they happen at all hours of the day and often can be impromptu.”

Dach’s calendar since July of 2024 shows a number of meetings with the UConn Board of Trustees, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katie Dykes regarding offshore wind, EV coordination, and meetings with the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, and multiple meetings regarding Stamford transit oriented development.

Dach has worked for Gov. Lamont since the beginning, joining his campaign team in 2018, before serving as a policy director and then chief of staff.

“No workday starts at 9am or ends at 5pm, as evidenced by vehicle records showing him at the office on weekends or during afterhours and progress isn’t always measured in meetings,” Blanchard said.

Blanchard said the results of the investigation into state vehicle usage is “ongoing but regardless, internal policies have been tightened, and oversight has increased.”

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