State overtime up through March

State government overtime expenses through March remained modestly ahead of last fiscal year’s pace.

It was unclear Monday how Connecticut’s response to the coronavirus pandemic will affect overtime before the fiscal year ends on June 30.

State agency and departmental overtime spending for the first nine months of this fiscal year — between July 1 and March 31 — was up $188.1 million compared with the same nine month period from the prior fiscal year, the legislature’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis reported Monday.

That represents an increase of slightly less than 4% over the first nine months of the fiscal year.

Overtime spending also was running about 4% higher than last fiscal year’s levels when nonpartisan analysts did their last quarterly assessment in early January.