Top officials with the Connecticut Lottery Corp. were recently awarded $170,000 in bonuses, which included bonuses to managers who make more than $100,000 annually.
According to a report in the Journal Inquirer, the quasi-public agency approved the so-called “incentive” payments on Sept. 20 for 17 officials, including 10 who earn six-figure salaries.
Most of the bonuses were just shy of 10 percent, which was also the bonus amount given to lottery President and Chief Executive Officer Anne Noble.
Gale Mattison, vice chairman of the lottery corporation’s board of directors and head of its personnel committee, told the newspaper that the bonuses were deserved.
“This is pay-for-performance,” Mattison said. “Lottery managers are not eligible for ‘longevity pay’ and we’ve had an incentive compensation program for quite a while.”
The lottery bonuses come on the heels of a recent pay raise controversy in the state’s Department of Higher Education that saw the department’s top two officials resign amid a flap over some $250,000 in pay hikes given to department managers. The raises were later suspended.
However, the Hartford Courant has reported that Robert Kennedy, the higher education chief who stepped down after the public learned of the unauthorized raises he gave to his department managers, will get another $100,000 in pay from the state, as well as another $20,000 in “deferred compensation.”
Kennedy earned an annual salary of $340,000 in his state job, the Courant reports.
