Time-card fraud cost Pierce Transit thousands and 2 workers their jobs, report shows
Pierce Transit lost $25,000 in time card fraud and fired two employees who took part in the scheme, the state Auditor’s Office announced Thursday.
Three employees clocked a total of 854 hours they didn’t work from August 2017 to October 2018, an investigation found.
Pierce Transit opened the inquiry in October 2018 after reviewing inconsistencies between time sheets and ID badge logs, the Washington State Auditor’s Office said in a report.
An office assistant and two transit schedulers in the Planning and Community Development Division cost the government agency $25,444, the report concluded.
The assistant and one of the schedulers were fired, and the second scheduler quit before the investigation was complete. The department manager also is no longer with the agency for unrelated reasons, Pierce Transit spokeswoman Rebecca Japhet said.
Employees are expected to work five eight-hour shifts a week and log their time. As part of its investigation, the state reviewed online time sheets, computer log-in times, calendar schedules and the use of badges to access Pierce Transit buildings.
Discrepancies between the time logged and the badge swipes showed the employees taking extra lunch breaks, arriving to the work late and leaving early.
Of Pierce Transit’s $154 million budget, employee salaries and benefits account for $93 million.
The audit recommends Pierce Transit staff get approval to work alternative schedules and that supervisors monitor staff’s time away from work. New policies will be implemented, the transit authority said.
New policies have been put in place across the agency to include a formal contract between employees and the agency regarding work hours and schedules, an automated leave system and an internal payroll audit program, Japhet said.
“It’s a lot easier of system, and it’s easier to track employee’s time off,” she said. “We’ve trained managers to keep careful tracking of employees’ time.”
