UConn Health's overtime hit $19.4M. It's a repeat audit finding.
Summary
UConn Health, Connecticut's public teaching hospital and academic health center in Farmington, paid its employees $19,409,562 in overtime -- including shift premiums -- across fiscal years 2023 and 2024, according to [a July 2026 audit from Connecticut's Auditors of Public Accounts](https://wp.cga.ct.gov/apa/wp-content/cgacustom/reports/FullReports/University%20of%20Connecticut%20Health%20Center%20FULL_20260709_FY2023,2024.pdf). Four employees earned between 111% and 153% of their normal salary in overtime alone -- more, in dollar terms, than their entire base pay. Auditors' stated cause is direct: UConn Health 'appears to lack adequate staffing and has not been able to fill available positions' -- the same finding, they note, that the prior audit already made. It's one line in a longer pattern: nine of the report's 11 findings repeat or restate problems the last audit flagged, including a $44,123 contract violation on compensatory-time payouts that auditors have now cited in six straight examinations reaching back to fiscal year 2013.
A finding the auditors have made before
UConn Health's overtime problem is one line in a longer pattern. The audit⧉ disclosed 11 findings in total, and nine of them -- including the overtime finding -- were repeats or restatements of problems the prior audit already flagged. The report's own accounting of its predecessor is direct: that audit contained 12 recommendations, UConn Health resolved three of them, and nine carried forward, unresolved, into this one.
View data as table
| June 2022 | 4,608 | |
|---|---|---|
| June 2023 | 5,010 | |
| June 2024 | 5,334 | up 15.8% from June 2022 |
Filling the payroll without closing the gap
UConn Health's own numbers complicate the simplest reading of "just hire more people." Permanent full-time headcount rose from 4,608 in June 2022 to 5,334 in June 2024 -- a roughly 15.8% increase over the same two years the health center was also racking up nearly $19.4 million in overtime. In its formal response, UConn Health pointed to a nationwide healthcare staffing shortage⧉, legally required nurse-staffing ratios, and contractual overtime pay running at double and triple time, arguing that shifts must always be staffed regardless of how competitive the labor market is for specialized clinical roles.
Where else the same pattern shows up
The repeat-finding pattern isn't limited to overtime. Auditors found UConn Health incorrectly paid $44,123 in compensatory-time payouts to 18 employees⧉ in the Maintenance & Service (NP-2) bargaining unit at their separation from employment, even though that union's contract prohibits paying out compensatory-time balances upon retirement or separation. That violation has now been flagged in five straight prior audit reports, covering fiscal years back to 2013 -- making this year's finding the sixth in a row. Separately, three salaried employees were paid $633,275 for pay periods in which most or all of their timecards went unapproved by a manager -- one employee had 100% of theirs unsigned.
View data as table
| Overtime Management | 1 | |
|---|---|---|
| Asset Management | 2 | |
| Timesheet Approval | 3 | |
| Compensatory Time | 5 | flagged since fiscal year 2013 |
A budget under separate pressure, too
The overtime and compliance findings land as UConn Health absorbs a two-directional funding shift. State General Fund appropriations to the health center fell⧉ from $340.3 million in fiscal year 2023 to $151.8 million in fiscal year 2024 -- a $188.5 million, 55.4% drop -- after a 2023 state law, Public Act 23-204, moved retirement-related fringe-benefit costs for all constituent higher-education-unit employees onto direct, centralized State Comptroller funding starting in fiscal year 2024 (which is why the appropriation itself shrank), while simultaneously requiring UConn Health to begin funding its own employees' health insurance, life insurance, unemployment compensation, and Social Security tax costs starting the same year. Overtime is a small fraction of UConn Health's overall budget -- about 0.6% of its $3.06 billion in combined operating expenses over the same two years -- but it is a cost the health center controls more directly than most, and one its own auditors say has an identified, still-unaddressed cause.
- The overtime finding isn't new -- it's the second time in a row. UConn Health's $19.4 million two-year overtime bill and its stated cause (inadequate staffing) both repeat the prior audit almost word for word.
- A modest dollar figure with a decade-long paper trail. The $44,123 in improper compensatory-time payouts is about 0.8% of UConn Health's total comp-time payouts, but auditors have now flagged the identical contract violation in six consecutive audits reaching back to fiscal year 2013.
- Headcount grew; the specific staffing gap that drives overtime didn't close. Permanent full-time positions rose about 15.8% in two years, but auditors' account of what causes the overtime -- unfilled positions, particularly in roles bound by legally required staffing ratios -- was unchanged from the prior audit.
- Audit recommendations carry no enforcement mechanism of their own (moderate confidence): nine of 11 findings repeated from the last audit, and UConn Health agreed with most of them in its official response -- the same posture, going by this pattern, it took last time.
All figures in this piece come directly from the Auditors of Public Accounts' July 9, 2026 report on UConn Health⧉, covering fiscal years 2023 and 2024 combined unless a specific fiscal year is stated. The audit's overtime and compensatory-time samples were judgmentally selected for testing (for example, the 'top 15' overtime earners, or ten haphazardly or randomly selected employees per finding) rather than drawn to statistically represent the full UConn Health workforce, so figures describing those samples -- like the $1.5 million paid to the top 15 overtime earners -- describe the specific employees tested, not a population-wide estimate. The 15.8% headcount-growth figure and the 0.6%/0.8% share figures are this piece's own arithmetic, computed directly from the dollar and headcount totals stated in the audit.
Sources(1) ▾
- State of Connecticut, Auditors of Public Accounts, Auditors' Report: University of Connecticut Health Center, Fiscal Years Ended June 30, 2023 and 2024 (2026-07-09) — The state legislature's independent Auditors of Public Accounts' performance and compliance audit of UConn Health for fiscal years 2023 and 2024, covering payroll, personnel, purchasing, and asset-management controls. Contains all 11 numbered findings (with each finding's Criteria/Condition/Context/Effect/Cause/Prior-Audit-Finding/Recommendation/Agency-Response structure), the Status of Prior Audit Recommendations table, and an 'About the Agency' section with UConn Health's staffing counts and audited financial statements. Fetched directly as a PDF from the Connecticut General Assembly's Auditors of Public Accounts site and read in full. wp.cga.ct.gov · original document
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UConn Health -- the state's public teaching hospital and academic health center in Farmington -- paid its employees $19,409,562 in overtime, including shift premiums, across fiscal years 2023 and 2024, according to a July 2026 audit from Connecticut's Auditors of Public Accounts⧉. Four employees earned between 111% and 153% of their normal salary in overtime alone -- more, in dollar terms, than their entire base pay. Auditors' explanation was blunt: UConn Health⧉ 'appears to lack adequate staffing and has not been able to fill available positions.' It isn't a new conclusion -- auditors note the same finding was already in the prior audit.