So, let's get this straight:
The Gloucester Police Department's payroll records are so screwed up that the state Inspector General's office, asked to investigate cases of potential "double-dipping," can't tell whether the allegations are true or not?
Yet, scary as it seems, that's the layman's explanation for the finding by Massachusetts Inspector General Gregory Sullivan as outlined in a letter to Mayor Carolyn Kirk.
In essence, Sullivan found that claims about two unnamed police officers "working for other employers while on city time" simply could not be verified because the city was unable to provide hourly work, overtime or detail records for the officers.
"The current timekeeping system is vulnerable to fraud, waste, and abuse ..." Sullivan wrote. "This office recommends that the city reevaluate the timekeeping practices at the Police Department and enact controls to reduce the risk of time theft."
There is a bit of good news out of this: Kirk and interim police Chief Michael Lane — who took over the department reins from beleaguered four-year Chief John Beaudette after these reported 2007 and 2008 cases had reportedly occurred on Beaudette's watch — are already on the case. Kirk said she had forwarded the inspector general's almost laughable letter to Lane, City Solicitor Suzanne Egan and Chief Financial Officer Jeff Towne. And Lane said the department was already reviewing all of its timekeeping practices, with the Gloucester Police Department now carefully tracking when each officer is working.
City taxpayers are really owed a lot more than a finding that — in the case of a police department, no less — faulty records seem to protect the suspects. Lane, Kirk and city personnel and payroll officials need to show taxpayers that, when a city employee is working on another job — in the public or private sector — he or she is not collecting taxpayers' money at the same time. And they need to assure taxpayers the same person is not adding to taxpayers' cost by taking time off to work another job in a way that creates the need to pay another city employee overtime to fill the spot.
Lane is absolutely right to note that the muddled records scuttling the double-dipping probe aren't as much a record-keeping issue as they are "an accountability thing."
It's time that all city departments adopted uniform time and payroll systems to ensure that they — and all city employees — are indeed accountable. That not just accountable to their department heads, but to the taxpayers footing the bills.
