Leave Records Wrong For 185 Of 206 Va Employees

[broncovet]

Those having trouble with the St. Pete RO now can understand why. An audit showed that most leave records were wrong, and employees were being overpaid.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/veterans/va-figures-on-timecard-inquiry-dont-match-audit/1182767

What this means is that there was widespread fudging of the time clock, probably with one employee clocking in for another while they are on vacation. They have a name for this. Its called fraud. Watch the VAOIG overlook this.

[jbasser]

Broncovet, That is not correct. The VA has a paid position called a Time and leave clerk or a Admin specialist that enters the time and leave of every employee. It is not the employees fault, It is the problem of mis management at a higher level. The Time Keepers can be held accountable per the title 5 of the Finance code and they can go to jail if the cards are falsified.

That is a fact. I actually did this job for my division for a couple of years.

Basser

[justrluk]

J -

As a fed, I feel your pain and you have my respect for having done that job. In our agency, it's still a paper-based process requiring manual input into the time keeping system. We audit X% per year at every location for just this reason.

For others: our time keeping practice is 40 years out-dated and certainly needs to be updated, but if there is leave abuse going on in any organization, it is the immediate supervisor's fault. They are the person that authorizes all leave requests, requests for over-time, comp time, etc. and signs the time sheets (or digitally sings in some agencies) and other forms attesting to the accuracy of the time as presented. The quickest way to go to jail is committing fraud through time and attendance, gov't travel card, or gov't charge card abuse.

I read the article and am confused:

1. There's a typo in the first paragraph. Not well edited.

2. The reporter says excessive leave was posted to their time cards = they were charged more leave than they took.

3. Further in the article, the reporter reverses that statement by stating that employees were not charged leave for when they were absent = leave abuse.

If I'm reading this wrong, please forgive me. Negative leave balances are authorized in certain circumstances, but if someone retires they must retire with a zero-balance, so if they had a negative, they would have to repay. Usually, this would be captured from their retirement pay (at least in our agency).

Edited July 29, 2011 by justrluk