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More whistleblowers filing City complaints

By: Katie Worth

10/27/09 5:46 PM PDT

Talk about not-safe-for-work: A city employee has been fired after they were found to be watching pornography on their work computer, according to a report by The City’s Office of the Controller.

That little news item was mentioned in a list of incidents reported to the city’s Whistleblower Program. The program was created by a proposition passed by voters in November 2003.

The program has grown year by year. This year, Whistleblower Program received some 465 complaints – up from 347 last year. The majority of this year’s complaints – 85 percent – came in over the Web site, while just a few percent were called in, according to the Controller’s report.

Of the complaints, 50.1 percent were investigated, while the rest lacked enough information to investigate, were referred to another department, were outside of the government’s jurisdiction, or didn’t require action, according to the report.

The pornography case was the only complaint listed that resulted in a firing. Among the other investigations mentioned was the case of a city employee accused of authorizing their own overtime and exaggerating the overtime they worked. Though the investigation didn’t substantiate the entire accusation, the employee is no longer eligible for overtime until all other employees have been offered those hours.

In another case, an employee was accused of running errands on work time using a city vehicle: that employee was suspended for 30 days and must reimburse The City for the time they weren’t at work. The employee’s vehicle must now be tracked by a global positioning system.

One City employee allegedly brought a dog along on a ride in a City vehicle, and was reminded that was against the rules, while another was not working a full work week, and was disciplined and placed under more careful supervision.