This is government, what else would you expect? Of course, maybe we want ALL State workers to get paid and do nothing—maybe we would be better off.
“A California state agency paid an employee six figures to spend nearly two years at home not working, according to a new report from the California State Auditor.
The audit, published Thursday, identified wasteful spending, poor oversight and unreported leave that resulted in misuse of taxpayer dollars.
According to the report, a California agency paid an unidentified analyst nearly $114,000 in wages after placing her on administrative time off for 20 months.
Your government, in action!
California agency paid a state worker six figures to stay home and not work, report says
Andrew Sheeler, Yahoo, Sacramento Bee, 5/19/23 https://www.yahoo.com/news/california-agency-paid-state-worker-130000497.html
A California state agency paid an employee six figures to spend nearly two years at home not working, according to a new report from the California State Auditor.
The audit, published Thursday, identified wasteful spending, poor oversight and unreported leave that resulted in misuse of taxpayer dollars.
According to the report, a California agency paid an unidentified analyst nearly $114,000 in wages after placing her on administrative time off for 20 months.
“We are not naming the agency that is the subject of this report because doing so may identify or lead to the identification of the individuals mentioned in the report,” according to the report. There are also no details on what prompted the long administrative leave.
Many other departments are called out by name, including California Correctional Health Care Services, which failed to account for a registered nurse’s absences totaling 600 hours between October 2019 and November 2021. It resulted in the employee being overpaid by more than $38,000.
Correctional Health Care responded that it agreed with the report, and that it had taken several steps to fix the problem, including requesting copies of the employee’s missing timesheets.
At the Department of State Hospitals, a psychiatric technician had nearly 400 hours of absences unaccounted for from October 2018 to August 2021, costing the state about $12,500.
The Department of State Hospitals said that the technician had left the department in early 2022.
According to the report, a supervisor with the Department of Industrial Relations “repeatedly misused one of the state vehicles for his daily commute over a period of three years,” incurring $11,000 in costs to the state.
DIR said “that it recognizes the seriousness of our report and has already taken steps to address the reported issues,” including installing GPS location tracking systems in its vehicle fleet to prevent misuse, according to the report.
Finally, a Department of Parks and Recreation supervisor used a public boat dock to store his personal boat for more than six years, denying the state up to $36,000 in potential revenue. The report said that State Parks also failed to report as part of the supervisor’s taxable income approximately $67,000 in housing benefits as a result of his living in state-owned housing.
State Parks responded by saying that it intends to take training and corrective action against the supervisor, and that the supervisor “meets the three-part test to have housing benefits excluded from his income.”
