Editor’s note: The Connecticut General Assembly website says the legislature “is considered to be part-time.” The National Conference of State Legislatures puts Connecticut between full-time and part-time, and legislators may feel like it’s a full-time job ― especially in the next few months.

Or as state Rep. Doug Dubitsky put it in May, when legislators voted to increase their salaries from $28,000 to $40,000, effective last month: “We’re not part-time, and we’re not full-time. We are too much of each, and not enough of either.”

This means that unless legislators are retired, supported by a partner or family, or otherwise financially well-off, they need to have a second job. Of course, some just love to work and don’t want to give up the fulfilling career they’ve had since before becoming a legislator.

But it’s also a lot to balance.

Day reporters followed two state representatives for a day each to see what it’s like to work a full-time job while the legislature is in session.

At 6:22 one Thursday morning in January, Detective Greg Howard is in the evidence room at the Stonington Police Department. The room has limited access, so Howard is there to grab a disc the records clerk requested and enter evidence patrolmen have left in lockers.

He puts in the computer a prompt to check on the status of a case in five years, as police don’t hold onto items with no evidentiary value. But Howard won’t be here then: On this day, Howard knows he has four years, eight months and four days until retirement.

And also on this day, he is headed from the police department to the state Capitol for his other job as a Republican state representative, having represented the 43rd District since January 2021. The district includes parts of Stonington and Ledyard along with all of North Stonington.

He had spent the day before in Hartford ― there was a House session ― and would make that time up by working at the police department Saturday. But on Thursday, Jan. 26, the plan is to work his police job from 6 to 8:30 a.m., go to Hartford, and finish his eight hours by working until 9 or 10 p.m.

“It’s tiring keeping up with the schedule,” said his boss, Detective Sgt. William Morrison.

But there are benefits to Howard sometimes working at night: He can interview people who work during the day, and the town doesn’t have to pay overtime.

7:03 a.m. ― After waddling ― Wednesday was leg day at the gym, and the elevator is down ― from the evidence room to his desk, Howard codes his recent bodycam footage on the computer, leaves a voicemail related to one case, and starts writing an affidavit for another property crimes case.

8:33 a.m. ― Howard leaves to drive to Hartford in his Honda. He soon gets a call from Stonington Public Schools about people with permission to access cemetery grounds next to Stonington High School, lest anyone found it suspicious and called police. At 9:03 a.m., he gets a call from a Connecticut Association of Realtors lobbyist, about a bill regarding the smoke and carbon monoxide detector affidavit for residential sales.

9:40 a.m. ― Howard pulls into the parking garage at the Legislative Office Building. He has a few minutes at his desk before a private Republican caucus meeting at 10 a.m.

10:34 a.m. ― Howard walks into a meeting of the Public Safety and Security Committee, of which he is a ranking member. The meeting lasts barely 20 minutes, with legislators voting to refer some bills to other committees and to raise concepts.

He then has a quick private meeting with an attorney from the nonpartisan Legislative Commissioners’ Office and stops to chat with an AFSCME Council 4 lobbyist in the atrium.

Howard’s name accidentally got attached to a bill Council 4 supports that mandates pensions for police officers and firefighters employed by municipalities, but Howard got it removed. He wanted to explain to the lobbyist that he supports pensions but not municipal mandates.

11:30 a.m. ― Howard, who was put on the Education Committee this year, has a half-hour meeting with a Connecticut Association of Boards of Education lobbyist. The conversation is about CABE’s goals for the legislature, such as increasing special education funding and allowing districts more flexibility in determining reading curriculum.

On the topic of social-emotional learning, Howard voiced frustration that if a school spends time on what he considers the role of parents and less on academics, it’s redundant for kids like his but means he is now teaching them fractions.

12:30 p.m. ― It’s lunchtime, and WFSB reporter Susan Raff drops by Howard’s table in the cafeteria to talk about guns.

1:35 p.m. ― Howard is at his desk and gets a call from his boss about a welfare check. Depending on how it goes, he may have to leave Hartford early, but Morrison later texts him to say the person has been found.

2 p.m. ― Howard goes into a meeting with a few other legislators and lobbyists from AFSCME Council 4, to talk about the legislative agenda of the union’s public safety council.

He stressed that when people decide to become police officers, pay isn’t the driving factor, and recruitment issues come from the disparagement of the profession. Howard, said he is “getting sick and tired of hearing we gotta pay people more to do a job we won’t let them do.”

After this, Howard is in meetings with the Police Officers Association of Connecticut and Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection Commissioner James Rovella until past 4 p.m., when he leaves for Stonington.

He speaks briefly in the car with his wife, Shana, who will soon be getting their younger son to Deans Mill School for basketball. Their two sons are in sixth and eighth grade.

Shana, who works as a payroll specialist for Stonington Public Schools, told The Day later that this term has been a lot easier because she knows what to expect, and that her husband’s past “crazy shifts” and on-call work prepared her.

“I’m used to sharing him with the town,” Shana said. She added that because her husband has always been in public service, “I was not at all surprised when he told me this is what he wanted to do.”

Greg said on nights he is home, he makes every effort to not be on the phone after 8 p.m., which Shana said he has been good about. On nights when the boys go to bed without seeing him, they’ll FaceTime him ― or maybe turn on CT-N.

The couple enjoy a date night at C.C. O’Brien’s, Shunock River Brewery or Jealous Monk when they can. Sometimes the whole family goes to the YMCA together, and they take skiing and snowboarding trips to Maine and Vermont.

(Howard, who is also a youth football coach, listed the four seasons as skiing, legislature, boating, and football.)

“I think the most exhausting thing, when you’re balancing two jobs, if you will, is the focus,” Howard said, not so much the time. But he said the fact he is focused on serving the same people makes it far less exhausting.

On this Thursday, Howard got back to the Stonington Police Department around 6 p.m. He left a voicemail for one case and continued working on an affidavit for the other.

9 p.m. ― Howard decides to take a few hours of vacation so he can get home, where a crockpot meal awaits.