In recent years, overtime costs have bedeviled many state and local governments, but recently no state has garnered more attention on this issue than Connecticut, where the Office of Fiscal Analysis 4th Quarter report noted that Connecticut spent $316 million in overtime in Fiscal Year 2025, up 5 percent from 2024. 

The report shows that five agencies were responsible for 95 percent of General Fund overtime spending in both fiscal years. They are the Department of Correction (DOC), Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS), Department of Developmental Services (DDS), Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP), and Department of Children and Families (DCF).”

Of those five, only Department of Developmental Services showed a small drop in overtime spending in 2025. There were 21 other agencies where overtime decreased in the most recent fiscal year, likely affected by improvements in state hiring for some though not all state positions.

Still, the overall increase in overtime stands out, raising concerns. In a CT Insider article, Chris DiPentima, president of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA), called the state's overtime costs ‘a disservice to taxpayers’ and said the spending is driving the cost of pensions. “It’s double jeopardy — taxpayers pay now and then get hit again when soaring overtime costs drive up overall state employee retirement liabilities,” DiPentima said.

State employee retirement costs depend on a variety of factors. Generally, defined benefit pension payouts are derived from a formula that includes a calculation of average salary over a period of years. How that figure is derived varies depending on the state, as well as complex rules that establish how average salary is established and whether overtime pay or other factors are included.

It's not simply a matter of normal overtime use adding to pension liabilities, but the process called “spiking” in which supervisors’ OK extraordinary overtime. 

One option which would help keep the pension liabilities from rising at a rapid clip, was sponsored by State Sen. Rob Sampson earlier this year. The bill would have calculated state pension calculations without counting in overtime. But that idea faced a hurricane of opposition from state employees and unions.

Between 2007 and 2019, about a fifth of the states have taken action to pull back on the inclusion of overtime in pension calculations – sometimes for new employees and sometimes more broadly.

In fairness, notwithstanding pension spiking, Connecticut continues to battle staff shortages in some departments that make excessive overtime necessary. The Department of Correction, by far the biggest user of overtime in the state,  pointed out its staffing issues in a written statement, “DOC operates on a 24/7, 365 day-a-year basis, and must maintain certain mandated levels of staffing in order to ensure the safety of the incarcerated population, the staff and the general public, [so] keeping overtime hours to a minimum is an ongoing challenge.”

#StateandLocalOvertimeManagement #ConnecticutOvertimeManagement #ConnecticutOvertimeCost #StateandLocalGovernmentHumanResources #StateStaffingShortages #StaffingShortageImpactOnOvertime #StateandLocalGovernmentManagement #StateandLocalGovernmentPerformance #StateandLocalPensionSpiking #OvertimePensionSpiking #ConnecticutOvertimePensionSpking #PensioReformAndOvertime #ConnecticutDepartmentCorrection #CorrectionStaffingShortage #StateandLocalManagementNews #StateandLocalHumanResourcesNews #StateandLocalPensionNews #BarrettandGreeneInc