The case of a state police sergeant who has been paid more than $289,000 this year illustrates the extent of the state's fiscal mess, and its unwillingness to deal with it.
Sgt. Stephanie Miller, who works at the state police barracks in Bethany, has been on the job for 22 years — making her eligible for retirement — and so far this year, she has been paid an eye-watering $185,000 in overtime. That makes her the highest-paid member of the state police union this year. Last year, she was paid more than $151,000 in overtime, part of a total compensation of about $257,000.
But she is far from alone — she is among 117 state police officers who have received more than $50,000 in overtime this year.
The reason for the overtime, of course, is to bump pensions, because a state trooper's lifetime pension is based on the average of their top three salary years. A trooper who retires with 20 years of service gets an annual pension of 50 percent of that average. Every extra year of service beyond that tacks another 2 percent on to the calculation.
That could mean well over $100,000 a year in taxpayer-funded pension payments to troopers who can retire at age 50 or even younger, potentially amounting to many millions of dollars over their lifetimes.
Take into account that there are 1,054 employees in the state police union bargaining group, and the scope of the problem becomes clear. Their pensions could add up to billions of dollars.
The state had a chance to address the problem in the spring of 2015, when it inked a three-year contract with the state police union that kept the lucrative pension plans in place — even though the state's looming billion-dollar shortfalls were anticipated even then.
That contract eliminated "longevity pay" for new hires — a fine step — but promised 9 percent in raises through the three-year life of the deal and, importantly, retained overtime in pension calculations.
Is it any wonder the state has a money problem?
To its credit, the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection has seen a 15 percent drop in overtime this year from last year's $31.3 million. But as the true costs of overtime are multiplied many times over down the road, the only real solution is to take overtime out of the pension calculations.
It won't cause undue suffering. The state police contract is remarkably generous. Aside from providing high salaries with regular increases, it gives perks such as use of state vehicles, a daily meal allowance of $18.88 and an annual "cleaning stipend" of $500 for every member of the union who doesn't wear a uniform.
But even as infuriating as those perks can be to the average taxpayer, there's another problem: the incentive to rack up overtime leads to overworked police.
In West Hartford, a town police lieutenant was paid more than $285,000 in 2014 after working a stunning number of overtime shifts, but the excessive number of hours worked raised concerns about his health, and a performance review said his "excessive amount of O.T. occasionally hampers interpersonal skills."
One chilling national study found that nearly half of police officers surveyed reported falling asleep while driving.
Including overtime in the pension formula could be putting lives at risk, as well as emptying the state treasury. State troopers are allowed to work up to 18 consecutive hours in a 24-hour period, a convenience for those seeking to boost their pensions but a sure way to encourage bleary law enforcement.
There is no question that state troopers perform a valuable service. Their jobs are demanding, many risk their lives, and they deserve to be compensated fairly. But the pensions available to them now are wildly out of balance, especially in these lean years, and the pressure to overwork is a danger for troopers and the public alike.