( INDIANA CAPITAL CHRONICLE ) — The Indiana Office of the Inspector General last month cleared two state employees — a supervisor and a subordinate — of alleged ghost employment and more.
But the office recommended that the Management Performance Hub, which employs the pair, take steps to “avoid the future appearance of impropriety.”
The OIG received an anonymous complaint last August alleging that the hub let a subordinate attend an out-of-state conference unrelated to her duties, that she didn’t attend the conference and that — for about a year — she was rarely in the office.
The complaint also accused the supervisor of violating a remote work agreement and misappropriating state funds.
OIG Special Agent Sam Stearley found that the supervisor let the subordinate attend the data software conference because he wanted her to learn how to use it. The hub paid for the rooms and reimbursed both employees for the flights, like it did with its other employee attendees.
A hub employee told Stearley none of the attendees saw the subordinate attend any sessions. But the hub also didn’t require sign-up sheets or any other way to document attendance.
The OIG, per a June 19 investigative report from staff attorney Doreen Clark, found no evidence that any hub employees misused state dollars to attend the conference.
The agency also didn’t find evidence that either employee knowingly solicited, accepted or got any kind of gift from outside entities hoping to influence their actions: the hub purchased tickets to the conference for its employees, minus a free ticket from the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.
Outside the conference
A hub employee told Stearley that when the State Personnel Department let the subordinate work from home — due to health issues — she typically spent less than three days a week in the office for the next year.
The employee also said the supervisor didn’t come into the office for about a month in summer of 2022, citing illness, and logging on for just two hours daily.
Stearley found the hub doesn’t require its employees to complete remote work logs, and that it had no remote work agreements on file for either the subordinate or the supervisor.
Timesheets revealed that the subordinate indeed reported most of her regular work hours for the year in question as remote, and used holiday and sick time when not working.
The supervisor, meanwhile, took accrued time off several times throughout July 2022. In August 2022, he reported being sick daily but still recorded between 2 and 5 hours of remote work each workday.
The OIG said it wasn’t able to prove the employees were doing something other than their jobs during work hours because there were no remote work logs that would’ve allowed investigators to track or correlate work hours and activities.
And it didn’t find enough evidence that either employee intentionally accepted payment for hours they didn’t work, given that they used accrued time off when not working and noted when they worked remotely.
Next steps
The report also said the office learned of additional allegations involving the supervisor and subordinate but they were outside state jurisdiction.
The OIG recommended that the hub require remote work logs for employees who work remotely, and that managers evaluate them regularly.
That would “permit both employees and their managers to keep track and manage their amount of work in correlation with the amount of time worked remotely,” Clark wrote.
The agency also recommended that the hub track employee attendance at future events, like a remote work log or a sign-up sheet.
“Keeping track of the employees’ attendance at conferences or outside events will leave little room for doubt or speculation regarding who may or may not have attended,” Clark added.
The OIG said it released the report publicly in hopes that other state agencies would adopt the recommendations.
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