Gov. Ned Lamont’s office failed for years to maintain proper controls over the use of state vehicles, state auditors reported , echoing a private investigator’s findings that Lamont’s former chief of staff chronically violated vehicle rules.
Auditors John Geragosian and Craig Miner, who examined the governor’s and lieutenant governor’s offices for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 fiscal years, also found that Lamont’s office approved staff time sheets without direct knowledge of time worked and kept more than 90 laptops and personal computers on its inventory, which represented, at times, an average of more than three devices per employee.
“Lack of adequate records and management review increases the likelihood of misconduct and noncompliance,” Geragosian and Miner wrote in their analysis of the governor’s office’s handling of three state vehicles assigned to it.
One of those vehicles is for the governor, while the other two were considered “pool vehicles” for staff use. State policy requires vehicles to maintain mileage logs, “which include daily operator assignments,” the auditors wrote. Staff operating vehicles must certify the logs are correct while agency heads must indicate why that travel was essential for agency business.
But Geragosian and Miner found Lamont’s office failed to maintain logs daily, and the vehicle utilization reports that were filed lacked details like who was driving.
They also noted that, on 37 of the 84 days during which pool vehicles were used, the operator did not park overnight at a state facility or an approved alternative location, as required by state policy.
Lamont spokesman Rob Blanchard said Thursday that “This issue has already been addressed by the governor, who immediately had staff adopt internal controls and policies around acceptable use of state vehicles, instituted greater accountability, and returned all pooled vehicles” to the Department of Administrative Services.
An investigation commissioned by Lamont concluded in early June that his former chief of staff, Jonathan Dach, chronically violated state rules by using a state vehicle as his personal car for nearly two years and driving at speeds constituting reckless driving under Connecticut law.
A referral to the Office of State Ethics for disciplinary action was mandatory.
The inquiry was prompted by a story posted on Nov. 24 by Inside Investigator, a news site affiliated with the Yankee Institute for Public Policy, about the apparent misuse of two cars assigned to the office of the governor: a 2020 Ford Escape used by Dach, and a 2019 Ford Fusion used by communications staff.
When the car used by Dach eventually was returned to the state motor pool after sitting unused for a time in the Legislative Office Building garage, it had damage on the passenger’s side that cost $3,509 to repair, according to the June report prepared for Lamont by two lawyers at Shipman & Goodwin.
Also Thursday, state auditors found that inventory records for the governor’s office didn’t properly record the location of nearly $25,000 worth of items.
They also noted that as of April 2025, inventory records showed 92 laptops and personal computers assigned to the governor’s office, which has 34 employees in the 2022-23 fiscal year and 25 in 2023-24.
Lamont’s office wrote in its formal response to the auditors that laptops are replaced at the end of their warranty period but some are retained to be used by interns, fellows or other staff. The administration also indicated that 18 laptops have been transferred to the Office of Workforce Strategy, but that move still needs to be recorded on the inventory.
There also was no evidence that the Department of Administrative Services, which provides fiscal services to the governor’s office, properly entered 72 assets collectively worth almost $128,400 into the inventory system, auditors wrote. The department responded in writing to the auditors that it will work more closely with the governor’s office on inventory records.
Geragosian and Miner also noted that Lamont’s office and DAS approved timesheets for the governor’s staff “without direct knowledge of their work hours or locations” and lacked formal written procedures for doing so.
Lamont’s office responded it has resumed the practice of having supervisors approve all timesheets and is developing written procedures.
You can read the entire audit: https://www.scribd.com/document/927188866/AUDIT-Connecticut-Governor-Office-of-the-FULL-20251002-FY2023-2024.
CT Mirror reporter Mark Pazniokas contributed to this story. He and Keith M. Phaneuf are reporter for The Connecticut Mirror (https://ctmirror.org/ ). Copyright 2025 © The Connecticut Mirror..