Lamont keeps OT costs in check despite pandemic

While hefty overtime costs have been plaguing state government for more than a decade, the coronavirus didn’t hinder Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration from keeping a lid on this budget problem.

But while the administration cites its continuing efforts to improve efficiency and streamline services, employee unions say a key underlying issue of understaffing remains unresolved.

Overtime costs rose just $5 million, or 2.2 percent, in the fiscal year that ended June 30, finishing at slightly less than $240 million, according to the legislature’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis.

While the pandemic, at times, blocked residents from fully utilizing all service agency programs, government and the public “certainly benefited from strong and effective management and use and deployment of new technological resources and access,” said Melissa McCaw, Lamont’s budget director, who added her office “will continue to work with our agencies to meet staffing needs and manage overtime use where possible.”

In the context of last year’s $20 billion general fund, the $239.9 million spent on overtime represented just over 1 percent, and the $5 million increase in OT costs amounted to a rounding error.

The pandemic did take a toll in some areas, such as the Department of Correction, where OT costs leapt upward by 16 percent last fiscal year, approaching $92 million. The Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, which includes the state police, saw overtime costs rise from $27 million to $32.1 million over the past fiscal year.

But OT expenses for key social service agencies including the departments of Mental Health & Addiction Services, Developmental Services, and Children & Families — all over-time hot-spots in recent years — declined in 2020-21.

During Lamont’s first full budget year in office, which ran from July 2019 through June 2020, nonpartisan analysts say overtime increased just 0.2 percent — despite that period covering the first four months of the pandemic.

That’s a departure from the second half of former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration. Overtime costs rose almost 15 percent during Malloy’s last two full fiscal years on the job.

Overtime in state government has been a growing concern for more than a decade, with annual costs approaching $250 million in the late 2000s and topping $250 million in the mid-2010s when Malloy was governor.