Image Copyright John Kwan, 2013. Used under license from Shutterstock.com
The Department of Public Health paid one employee for 28 hours of work in a single day, according to auditors.
DPH made the payment for a combination of on-call hours and regular working hours.
“We were told that employees are paid for on-call duty even when they are at work,” auditors said in their report. “There are no controls in place for the assignment or monitoring of employees who are on-call. There is no documented assessment of the need for on-call payments, no schedule, and management has not monitored or rotated the assignment of staff.”
On-call payments issued by DPH totaled $51,875 in 2008 and $58,814 in 2009.
Six employees received on-call pay while on vacation or unpaid leave. One worker took a ten day leave of absence prior to retirement and was awarded with on-call pay throughout that time.
Auditors also found errors with overtime payments. During 2009, DPH paid out $56,321 in overtime. One state employee “charged one half hour of overtime to a federal grant every day” because his schedule did not match lab hours.
Katherine Concepcion is a Yankee Institute journalism fellow. She lives in East Hartford.