Connecticut is consistently spending more each quarter on state employee overtime. Explanations for why this is happening vary, from a practice known as overtime spiking to staff shortages and vacancies. But obtaining information about overtime policies from state agencies is not easy. That means rising costs with no clear way for the public to evaluate the causes or seek solutions.

According to the Office of Fiscal Analysis’s (OFA) latest statutorily required report, the state spent roughly $79.4 million of General Fund expenditures on overtime pay through the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, an 8.7 percent increase from the previous fiscal year.

In the previous quarter, the state spent roughly $316.3 million on overtime, a five percent increase over the previous fiscal year.

Overall, General Fund spending on overtime has increased each fiscal quarter since the first quarter of fiscal year 2024. The state hit a 10-year low for overtime spending in 2017, but annual spending has since increased by over half and set new record highs in both 2023 and 2025.

But, as a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests Inside Investigator submitted show, obtaining data to reveal more about what is behind the increase is hard to obtain. 

It’s yet another example where Connecticut’s data collection practices frustrate attempts to clarify the root causes of issues plaguing the state.

In 2025, the Townsend Group, a Connecticut-based business and public policy consulting firm, authored two reports on overtime spiking at the Department of Correction (DOC) and the Department of Emergency Services & Public Protection’s (DESPP) state police.

Overtime spiking occurs when state employees near retirement work many hours of overtime because pension calculations include overtime in the years immediately before retirement.

The Townsend Group’s study of DOC, released in partnership with Yankee Institute and Nutmeg Research Initiative, looked at the top ten overtime earners between fiscal years 2020 and 2024. Of the 28 employees they identified who earned the most overtime pay during that time period, some of whom were in the top ten multiple times, eleven have since retired. And ten of those eleven retired with an annual pension above their salary in their final year of work. 

The study also analyzed overtime use by the top ten earners in their last five-years of work and found overtime “in the most recent years far exceeded salary and the employee’s [overtime] earnings in prior years.”

The study of DESPP made similar findings. Of the 13 top overtime earners between fiscal years 2020 and 2024 who have retired, 12 are receiving annual pension benefits that are higher than their final-year salary.

Between fiscal years 2020 and 2024, the study found state troopers earned $578 million in overtime. Officers who had worked less than ten years earned an average of $14.5 million in overtime compared to an average exceeding $30 million for troopers working 15 to 20 years.

Similarly, the study of DOC found a drop in overtime pay between employees’ 19th and 20th years of work, showing most workers retire once they hit full pension eligibility. For data spanning July 2019 to April 2025, the study found 1,544 retirees earned $24.28 million of overtime in their 19th year of service and $12.29 million in their 20th.

But overtime spiking alone does not explain continued increases in overtime spending. Though spending has grown more among employees close to reaching pension eligibility, it’s also grown across the board.

State employee union officials point to staffing shortages as a driving force behind increased overtime. Under former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, the executive branch workforce shrank by about 10 percent. While recent budgets have authorized expansions in the workforce, it still remains below pre-2010 levels. 

Expansion of the state workforce under Lamont has also come with wage and benefit recessions, which unions argue have decreased staff retention. In the first months of 2022, the state also saw over 4,000 workers retire before restrictions on benefits went into effect.

In December 2024, the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) wrote that the erosion of competitive benefits is “[o]ne of the most significant obstacles” to resolving “chronic understaffing, exacerbated by ongoing recruitment and retention challenges.”

According to the state’s data showing executive branch employment at agencies that manage human resource data through the Department of Administrative Services (DAS), there were 33,213 state employees in July 2024. That number marked the highest level of employment since January 2022, the earliest date that data is available. 

Employment has remained below that number since, recently declining from 32,522 employees in December 2025 to 32,251 employees in January 2026.

The number of vacancies being filled is also declining. In May 2025, the state filled 656 vacancies, the highest number since a year earlier, when over a thousand vacancies were filled. In December 2025, the state filled 239 vacancies.

Overtime spending by five agencies—the Department of Correction (DOC), the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS), the Department of Developmental Services (DDS), the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP) and the Department of Children and Families (DCF)—accounts for the vast majority of overtime expenditures.

According to Open Payroll, Connecticut spent just under $400 million on overtime in 2025, an increase from roughly $376 million the previous year.

According to OFA officials, overtime spending by DOC, DMHAS, DDS, DESPP, and DCF accounted for over 95 percent of overtime expenditures through the first quarter of fiscal year 2025. By the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, overtime spending by those five agencies accounted for over 96 percent of General Fund overtime spending.

There are differences in the way overtime is reported on Open Payroll and in OFA’s reports because OFA’s review is drawn from Core-CT data and is limited to General Fund expenditures.

But according to Open Payroll, the average employee in those five agencies earned at least $10,000 in overtime in 2025. The average DCF employee earned $10,050 in overtime in 2025, the lowest amount among the five agencies accounting for the most overtime. The average DESPP employee earned more than three times that, with average overtime payments of $36,351. 

All five agencies also saw average overtime payments to employees increase between 2024 and 2025. 

According to OFA’s reports, DOC spent the most on overtime in both of OFA’s most recent reports and also had the largest increase in overtime spending.

Through the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025, DOC spent $118.8 million on overtime, a 10.8 percent increase from the previous year. Through the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, DOC spent roughly $25.1 million on overtime, a 17.2 percent increase from the previous year.

While DESPP overall spent less on overtime, its rate of growth was higher in 2026. Through the final quarter of fiscal year 2025, DESPP spent $46.3 million, a 5.9 percent increase over the previous year. Through the first quarter of fiscal year 2026, DESPP spent roughly $15.8 million on overtime, an 18.8 percent increase.

Other agencies had significant increases in overtime requests, though their overall overtime spending was significantly lower. For example, through the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025, the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) saw overtime spending jump 120.1 percent from the previous year. However, their overtime spending for that period was $15,486.

Several agencies also shrank overtime spending significantly, in several cases completely eliminating overtime spending through the first quarter of fiscal year 2026. The State Department of Rehabilitation, Department of Labor, Department of Revenue Services and Connecticut State Department of Education all had no overtime spending, a 100 percent decrease from the previous year. But none of those agencies has spent more than $5,000 on overtime in the previous year. 

There’s evidence that both a shrinking state workforce and overtime spiking are contributing to increased overtime spending. But neither OFA’s nor Open Payroll’s overtime data reveals the reasons overtime use is spiking or declining in state agencies. That data doesn’t show rationales used to claim overtime or what policies agencies use to approve or reject them.

Nor is it easy to obtain documents that show these things.

After OFA officials released a report on overtime spending through the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025, Inside Investigator submitted a series of identical FOIA requests to DOC, DESPP, DDS, DCF, and DMHAS, as well as several other state agencies that had a significant increase in overtime spending. The requests sought a copy of all overtime requests submitted and approved through the fourth quarter of 2025. Separately, Inside Investigator also submitted a series of requests to state agencies for their policies governing overtime. 

What followed was a series of exchanges where Inside Investigator was bounced back and forth between state agencies and was left searching for the specific keyword to use in a request that would produce the records we were seeking, as the initial request language proved unhelpful.

Inside Investigator learned from responses to those requests that OFA pulls data for those reports directly from Core-CT and does not communicate with state agencies.

The response to the second part of those requests was less forthcoming. At publication, neither DESPP nor DCF had responded to those requests. 

Two agencies, DOC and UConn Health Center, replied that they did not have any responsive records. Only CSDE and DDS provided responsive records, including actual timesheets with overtime requests.

Both DOC and UConn Health Center maintained that responsive records could be found with other agencies or didn’t exist.

UConn Health Center officials wrote, “We have done a search and found no records responsive to that request.  More specifically, there are no overtime requests submitted as the use of overtime at UConn Health is based on operational need, not employee requests.”

DOC’s FOI Administrator Stephanie Secore said that she’s spoken with various departments, including Fiscal Services and Operations, and had been told DOC doesn’t track overtime at an individual level. 

“At DOC, overtime is done in the following manner. Each quarter, staff sign the quarterly overtime book.  This results in a list of staff who are willing to be called to work voluntary overtime if/when needed.  Staff may also sign not to be added to the quarterly list, indicating that they would not like to be called for voluntary overtime for the quarter.“ Secore wrote.

Inside Investigator next turned to the comptroller’s office, which manages Core-CT, seeking the underlying overtime records for the same list of agencies in fiscal years 2024 and 2025, as well as any Core-CT policies governing overtime reporting.

Madi Csejka, the communications director for the comptroller’s office, pointed toward publicly available dashboards on Open Payroll and Open Data. She also noted that the Office of Policy and Management’s Office of Labor Relations would have records for policies governing overtime, as these are determined by collective bargaining agreements with various state employees’ unions.

Inside Investigator clarified that we were looking specifically for records showing when overtime requests had been approved or disapproved, and that several agencies had indicated that data was in Core-CT.

Ceska noted that we were likely looking for timesheets, which agencies should have because they sign off on them.

“The agencies sign off on individual timesheets and therefore have access to them. Some agencies use Core for timesheet approvals, but not all of them. Therefore, despite what individual agencies appear to have said, they would be the best source for timesheet records.” Csejka wrote.

With that new and helpful information in hand, Inside Investigator once again went back to agency officials with new requests for fiscal year 2024 timesheets that contained overtime requests.

To date, those requests are still largely outstanding. Only CSDE has provided responsive information. DOC officials again stated they have no responsive records because they do not track overtime at the individual level.

Inside Investigator also submitted a third series of requests to the same list of agencies, seeking their overtime policies. CSDE stated that overtime use is governed by CBAs and that any policies for either union or non-union employees would be maintained by the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) since it manages human resources for all state agencies. DAS directed us to the OPM website that hosts the state’s CBAs.

While most state agencies did turn over policies contained in their agency handbooks, many of them simply reiterate or clarify the overtime processes laid out in CBAs.

It’s true that CBAs form the backbone of how agencies administer overtime, but those policies don’t provide any insight into how agencies respond to claims of overtime for particular reasons or explain why overtime has increased so dramatically.

For the most part, the overtime policies Inside Investigator received fleshed out the policies laid out in CBAs, but contained no information about how much overtime agencies should approve or the reasons they should be approved or denied.

The state police’s CBA dictates that eligible employees receive pay at time and a half when they work over 40 hours in a workweek, except in limited circumstances. It also mandates that attempts be made to “equalize mandatory overtime shifts.”

According to the policies within the departmental handbook DESPP officials turned over in response to Inside Investigator’s request for overtime policies, “hours of work in excess of the standard established work shall be overtime hours and employees will be compensated according to labor contract agreement.”

In non-emergencies, overtime for state troopers “shall follow a standardized procedure from a pool of volunteer troopers, notified first in order of the least recent prior notification and then in order by seniority.” Troopers are required to fill out overtime cards that contain dates for which employees can sign up to volunteer to work a certain number of hours.

Overtime is usually voluntary, unless no volunteers are available on a date overtime is needed. Special duty overtime also has different rules.

The Secretary of the State’s Office, which had a 45 percent increase in overtime through the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025, provided a one-page policy that said largely the same thing, stipulating that overtime is “time worked beyond the normal workweek, usually under certain emergency situations or to meet special needs for increased work production” and required advance approval from management.

The State Elections Enforcement Commission, which had a 120.1 percent increase in overtime through the fourth quarter of 2025, turned over a page of their handbook that outlined similar policies.

“SEEC employees may not work overtime, nor accrue compensation time on State holidays unless there are extraordinary circumstances and have prior approval written by the Executive Director and General Counsel.” the handbook states.

The policies DCF and DDS provided included some additional details about how overtime requests should be approved.

“DCF supervisors shall be authorized to approve overtime work for bargaining unit staff who are entitled to earn overtime only when such situations are deemed “absolutely necessary,” meaning that the situation is critical to public health, welfare and safety or is needed for the essential management of state responsibilities.” DCF’s policy states.

The agency’s overtime policies also stipulate that overtime requests should be submitted as far in advance as possible, except in an emergency when employees can handle the emergency and “advise management the following day.”

“Notations for overtime payment shall be recorded on the employee’s time sheet and initialed by the supervisor to indicate authorization for payment. The reason for the overtime, in general terms, shall also be indicated on the timesheet.” the policy states. 

Inside Investigator’s request for overtime sheets to DCF was still outstanding at date of publication.

Among the documents DDS officials turned over was a sheet listing overtime use codes, which contained explanations of when they were to be used and, in some cases, limitations on how long they could be claimed.

Several codes referenced staffing shortages or additional staffing that might be needed to handle situations that arise as a result of DDS’ work, including “Authorized Staff,” to be used to meet minimum staffing requirements; “Client Behavior,” to be used when extra staffing is needed due to an individual’s behavior; and “Client Sick,” to be used when an individual who would normally participate at a day program is ill and requires either home assistance or to be accompanied to the emergency room.

Other codes covered employees who were on furlough or paid leave. 

DDS also stipulated that a 30-day limit exists on use of overtime “to provide staffing for an individual who is temporarily placed” and that overtime used without cause should “be used only in rare circumstances and must be able to explain reason.”

DDS also provided guidelines for how employees are required to record their hours and any overtime daily, as well as regional policies for overtime in accordance with the agency’s CBA.

But while the codes DDS provided helped provide some insight into how the agency adjudicates overtime requests, they were the only ones. Most of the agencies Inside Investigator submitted FOIA requests to pointed us to CBAs or to policies that further outline what’s dictated by bargaining agreements, not how they categorize overtime requests or approach approving or disapproving them.

Inside Investigator was able to receive limited data from CSDE and DDS that shows the approval and disapproval of overtime requests on individual employee timesheets.

According to the date DDS turned over, in March 2025, the agency fielded overtime requests totaling over 880 hours from 48 different employees. It approved roughly 58 percent of requests received during that time period. On average, the agency approved just under 14 hours of overtime per pay period and denied requests totaling just over 13 hours per pay period.

The majority of approved overtime requests cited staffing shortages and resulting increased workloads. Others were approved because emergency maintenance was needed at DDS facilities.

Reasons overtime requests were approved included:

• Processing Division of Investigations abuse and neglect intakes and investigations for a vacant secretary division and assisting with Human Rights Committee case processing
• Clerical follow up for the processing of intakes and Immediate Protective Services Plan to cover two vacant positions in the Division of Investigations
• Installation of a motion sensor in a patient’s room for safety reasons
• Managing 24-hour operations of a facility powerhouse for an employee on medical leave
• Emergency repairs to a malfunctioning fire alarm system
• Conducting abuse and neglect investigations
• Completing clerical tasks for abuse and neglect investigations that were on a strict completion timeline to cover three vacant positions
• Dealing with an emergency where water was flowing from a hose bib

Requests to use overtime to complete work not being done because of staff vacancies were not always approved.

Reasons overtime requests were denied include:

• Installing plumbing as part of a renovation
• Completing a painting project
• Covering a payroll clerk out on three days of sick leave
• Overseeing central warehouse and delivery services
• Overtime for a fleet maintenance quality control worker covering for another worker who had retired in 2019
• Support for Department of Homeland Security Threat Assessment Team Training
• Addressing a backlog of Mortality Medical Desk Reviews

Multiple requests to use overtime to address the backlog of mortality reviews were denied. A request for 10 hours of overtime, spread across almost three months, to cover the work of a vacant secretary position was denied.

In some cases, requests that were initially denied were later approved after they had been narrowed.

Payroll officer Madia-Li Banks-Battle initially requested 18 hours of overtime spread between March 21, 2025, and May 1, 2025, to assist while a newly hired payroll clerk was going through four to six weeks of training. The request was initially denied but later approved when it was narrowed to cover 18 hours of overtime between March 21, 2025, and April 4, 2025. 

Identical requests were made by Christine Saldana, Lattice Singleton, Icris Moore, Nancy Carolus, Karen Everett, Anne Lindsay, and Danielle Benham, all payroll clerks, to assist with the training of a new payroll clerk for four to six weeks. This was also initially rejected and then approved after the time period for which they were claiming overtime was narrowed. Toni Kirchner, a fiscal/administrative assistant, also made an identical request that was approved after it was narrowed.

According to data from Open Payroll, employees who received approval for overtime during March earned roughly $48,350 in overtime pay for the time period their requests were approved. 

Several employees earned thousands of dollars for overtime in March. Jonathan Di Saronno, a stationary engineer, earned nearly $4,300 for 40 hours of overtime managing the 24-hour operations of a facility powerhouse while another employee was on medical leave. Stationary engineer Matthew Fletcher earned $8,900 for 40 hours of overtime and stationary engineer Joseph Pfander earned $6,180 for 40 hours of overtime for the same reason.

From January 1, 2025, to December 15, 2025, the date Inside Investigator retrieved data from Open Payroll, employees who submitted overtime during that time period earned roughly $492,000 across the year. 19 employees earned over $10,000 in overtime across 2025, with the highest amount, $34,504, going to Frederick Wilson, a stationary engineer.

DDS’ central office denied the highest number of overtime requests, 13, in March. During that month, overtime requests from utilization review nurse coordinators and payroll clerks were most frequently denied. Requests from stationary engineers were most frequently approved.

The data CSDE turned over provided much less insight into the department’s overtime approval process. CSDE turned over overtime sheets and approval forms for three different employees, most of which covered 2023 and 2024.

Many did not include reasons overtime was being approved. An approval sheet for Joel Munisar, a duplicating services supervisor who was requesting overtime to fill in with the department’s operations unit, cited staff shortages. Munisar was, across overtime requests that stretched between March 2024 and June 2024, approved to work an average of one hour of overtime per day. 

Data from Open Payroll, however, suggests that not all that overtime was used, as Munisar is not recorded as having earned overtime pay for some pay periods where it was approved. In total, Munisar earned $8,600 in overtime across 2024. Open Payroll data, accessed by Inside Investigator on December 18, states Munisar had not earned any overtime pay to date in 2025.

Overtime documents CSDE provided for Nancy Valez, an office supervisor requesting overtime to fill in at the department’s talent office, cited a “back log of work emails.” The overtime requests CSDE provided for Velez stretched from June 2023 to February 2024 and included requested hours daily in many pay periods, including on some weekend days. 

In 2013, Velez earned just over $18,000 in overtime and approximately $3,000 in 2024. Open Payroll indicates Velez has not earned any overtime in 2025.

CSDE also provided overtime sheets for Mike Orvis, a fiscal administrative officer applying for overtime to fill in with the department’s fiscal services unit. An authorization form for overtime between April 21, 2022, and June 30, 2023, estimated that Orvis would work 50 hours of overtime at a cost of $3,067.

Orvis ended up working significantly less than that, according to overtime sheets, earning a total of $1,277 in overtime in 2023 and $608 in 2024. 

Missing from many of the documents CSDE provided was the reason overtime was being claimed. Though the overtime sheets CSDE provided for employees like Orvis and Munisar contained both a code for common reasons overtime was being claimed and a place for that reason to be recorded, these were frequently blank.

On one timesheet covering overtime approved between March 8, 2024, and March 21, 2024, “staff shortage” is listed as the reason for each hour of overtime Munisar was approved to work during that time period, totaling nine hours. Another overtime sheet covering March 22, 2024, and April 4, 2024, lists the same reason, but other overtime sheets CSDE turned over list no reason overtime was being claimed or approved.

In Orvis’ case, the timesheet giving blanket authorization to work 50 hours of overtime between April 21, 2022 and June 30, 2023 lists  “Staffing and FYE”(fiscal year end) as the reason overtime was being sought.

An overtime approval sheet for Velez lists a “backlog of work emails” and “training employees has backed me up at work” as the reason 24 hours of overtime between October 7, 2023 and October 18, 2023 was approved. CSDE did not provide approval sheets for periods of overtime Velez worked outside those dates according to the timesheets they provided.

The limited data Inside Investigator received shows staff shortages are frequently cited in both requests for overtime and in approvals of overtime requests.

But OFA’s data in its quarterly overtime reports show no strong link between employee counts and overtime claims. The data shows quarterly declines in overtime in agencies that lost employees year-over-year and, conversely, increases in overtime in agencies that gained employees.

To fully understand the state’s explosion in overtime spending, more data is needed. But detailed data about how agencies make overtime decisions is not easily obtained through FOIA.

Open Data and Open Payroll are good public-facing resources for those looking for state data, but they don’t tell the full picture. But when public databases or resources exist, agency officials are sometimes too hasty to direct requesters to those, regardless of whether they provide the information being sought. Numerous state agencies to whom Inside Investigator sent requests for this investigation provided links only to online CBAs or directed us to information available through other sources.

Yet, as responses primarily from DDS suggest, the more detailed records that capture how agencies track, respond, and set policies to handle overtime requests from individual employees do exist. They’re just not easy to obtain. 

Editor’s Note: The Townsend Group’s study of DOC was released in partnership with Yankee Institute and Nutmeg Research Initiative. Inside Investigator is an independently managed project of Yankee Institute. Inside Investigator management oversees daily operations and determines content, completely independent of Yankee Institute and Yankee Institute had no editorial input on this investigation.

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