Overtime at Connecticut state agencies up 11.3% for FYQ1

Connecticut”™s state agencies spent $77.9 million on overtime in the first quarter of the 2022-23 fiscal year (July 1 through Sept. 30), according to the legislature”™s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis.

According to a CT Mirror report, this level of spending is $7.9 million or 11.3% higher than agencies spent during the same three-month period during the prior fiscal year. The total does not include the University of Connecticut, which operates under a different payroll system.

During the 2021-22 fiscal year, Connecticut”™s General Fund overtime spending increased by $26.1 million or 11.1%, resulting in a sum of $266 million.

However, five state departments ”“ Children & Families, Correction, Developmental Services, Emergency Services and Public Protection, and Mental Health & Addicition Services ”“ accounted for 92% of overtime spending during the fiscal year”™s first quarter and during the two previous fiscal years.

“State workers are exhausted, working triple and even quadruple shifts just to keep the doors open,” said Drew Stoner, a spokeswoman for the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition.

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