Amador County – The California Inspector General last week released a report saying Mule Creek State Prison must improve how it oversees some of its employees’ work hours and timekeeping.
Inspector General Bruce A. Monfross delivered the report April 6, with a letter to Matthew L. Cate, secretary of the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation.
Monfross in the letter said the “report concludes that many of the prison’s mental health and educational employees were fully paid, but did not average working full days inside the prison over a three-month period, ending August 2010.” He said “for example, according to the prison’s electronic security system data, 46 of 51 mental health clinicians – consisting of psychiatrists, psychologists, and licensed clinical social workers – averages working 8.4 hours of their scheduled 10-hour days, the equivalent of 33.6 hours per week. The employee with the lowest average spent only 6.4 hours per day, or the equivalent of 25.6 hours per week, inside the prison.”
Monfross said the prison’s educators – “12 academic teachers, five vocational instructors, and three educational supervisors – also averaged working less than full days, ranging between 33 to 39 hours per week.”
He said “in total, these employees’ unaccounted-for hours – time for which they were paid but which they did not spend inside the prison, in training, or in time off – amounted to $272,900 over the three-month period, or, at this rate, nearly $1.1 million in a year.”
Monfross in the letter said his report “concludes that timekeeping mistakes made by employees and the prison’s personnel office on a sample of timesheets over a four-month period resulted in some employees being overcharged more than $6,500 and other employees being undercharged nearly $102,000 in leave hours.”
The report said “many of Mule Creek State Prison’s mental health employees received full-time pay, but appeared to work only part time.” It also found that “academic teachers” and supervisors “appeared to work less than full days.” The report said ineffective supervisory oversight of timesheets and personnel practices at Mule Creek “have resulted in costly mistakes.”
The report recommended changes “to the extent permissible” under “employees’ labor agreements.” One would switch mental health shifts to eight-hour days. It also recommended developing “a method to hold supervisors and managers” in mental health and education divisions accountable.
The report said “timekeeping mistakes made by the prison’s personnel office resulted in dozens of employees receiving extra time-off hours,” combined to cost the prison a total of $92,000. Most mistakes “were caused by illegible writing or by common arithmetic errors.” About $2,000 of it was from “inconsistent application of the state’s rules for using or accruing holiday time-off and excess hours.”
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
