by Viktoria Sundqvist CTNewsJunkie
HARTFORD, CT — The Connecticut Department of Correction paid out $834,955 to nine people who were on leave past their allowed time limit, some for years longer than allowed, a recent audit shows.
Conducted by the state Auditors of Public Accounts, the audit covered the fiscal years ending in June 2022 and June 2023. Overall, it identified 18 issues, and many of them were repeat findings from prior audits.
During the audited period, 128 DOC employees received paid administrative leave, totaling 100,165 hours, and auditors selected the 10 employees with the most hours charged for their review.
The department’s bargaining contract allows the agency to place an employee on paid leave for up to two months while deciding on employee discipline. However, the audit found nine out of the 10 employees were on paid leave for much longer than allowed, from 1 to 3.5 years longer, when they should have been on unpaid leave, terminated or returned to work, auditors said.
“Delays in completing investigations of these employees contributed to the overpayments,” auditors noted.
For any administrative leave exceeding two months, the department must seek approval from the Office of Labor Relations, according to the audit.
The department in its response said it partially agrees with this finding, but that the delay in investigating many of its cases is out of its control due to investigations involving other agencies.
The majority of people on administrative leave are either being investigated for use of force, a felony arrest for off-duty misconduct or something they call “undue familiarity,” meaning they were suspected of bringing contraband into a correctional facility. These cases are investigated either by the Inspector General’s office or the Connecticut State Police, the DOC said.
“The agency cannot return employees to work while any charges are pending and investigations are open,” DOC said in its response. “To do so would be a direct threat to the safety and security of our institutions.”
Auditors also found inconsistencies in overtime pay, missing sign-up sheets, missing documentation for people on union leave, 185 hours of union leave not approved by supervisors or the Office of Labor Relations, missing supporting documents or signatures for compensatory time for parole officers, incorrectly coded overtime payments and that the department did not perform annual inventories of its assets in a timely manner.
Auditors recommend improved internal controls, better monitoring of overtime records and proper authorizations and making sure it adheres to state regulations and collective bargaining contracts.
The audit notes that the DOC spent $96.6 million on overtime costs in 2022 and $103.4 million in 2023. Due to incomplete records and oversight, there’s a risk some employees are earning an excessive amount of overtime, auditors said.
The DOC in its response said it would “implement corrective action to achieve policy compliance
through an increased focus on centralized storage and retention of such manual logs for auditing review.” It also said it would strengthen compensatory time and overtime approvals to ensure it adheres to applicable bargaining contracts.
However, the department also noted it currently uses three separate payroll systems – Kronos, Atlas and Core – making payroll for correction department staff “extremely complex.”
The Department of Correction, headquartered in Wethersfield, oversees 12 corrections facilities and is led by Commissioner Angel Quiros since February 2021. For administrative purposes, the Board of Pardons and Paroles is also under DOC purview.