Nine Census Employees Were Paid for 100 Full Days They Did Not Work

As many as 40 Census Bureau employees who process background checks on new hires and contractors fudged their time-and-attendance reports by a total of nearly 20,000 hours, costing the government some $1.1 million, according to the Commerce Department inspector general.

Workers in the bureau’s Hiring and Employment Check Office-- which screens candidates for full-time employment and temporary door-to-door census takers—were also found over four years to have claimed hours they did not work or claimed to be teleworking when evidence showed they did not. Some of those investigated may also have committed a federal crime by interfering with the IG investigation and threatening the whistleblowers who reported their conduct to a hot line in December 2013, according to a full report released Thursday following Freedom of Information Act requests.

Nineteen of the accused had individual discrepancies of more than 400 hours in attendance claims over four years, and nine drew pay for 100 full days (800 hours) when they did no work. Some inflated their reported hours, and one contractor “billed for 361 hours of time not actually worked, which amounted to a loss to the government of $32,217.11,” the report said.

Once the IG investigation was under way, one of the accused let colleagues know he intended to find out the whistleblower’s identity and would get even so that “the whistleblower would wish he had retired,” the report said. He sought a signed statement from a suspect to harm that person’s career, and used his personal relationships with a supervisor to advance his reprisal. “Referring to the OIG whistleblower as a ‘rat,’ ‘snitch,’ ‘coward,’ and ‘chickenshit’ repeatedly in front of the entire CHEC Office is harassment and creates a hostile work environment,” the report said. “Likewise, though perhaps intended as a joke, [the employee] said, ‘This is for who went to the OIG!’ while holding a knife and making a stabbing motion with his arm.”

The watchdog made several recommendations, among them disciplinary action against the individuals, improving training in time-and-attendance procedures and beefing up quality control mechanisms. The bureau had noted that the misreporting of time and attendance was unevenly distributed among the suspected violaters and that training in the bureau’s internal systems was inadequate.

After meeting with IG staff, Census supervisors—whom the IG report credits for full cooperation—provided direct instruction in July 2014 from the Census director on the importance of accurate attendance reporting. The bureau has boosted orientation on procedures and the bureau’s internal Web-based system, altered the hiring office’s management structure and introduced a new quality control process. Finally, it added a new budget analyst and an auditor to review the hiring office’s staff levels and contracts.

(Image via Michael D Brown / Shutterstock.com)