ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 1, 1996 TAG: 9601020105
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: HOLIDAY
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
A state-run fraud hot line has led to the firing of state employees and uncovered numerous instances of squandered public funds, according to a newspaper analysis.
Most of the 3,092 calls to the 3-year-old State Employee Fraud, Waste and Abuse Hotline were not substantiated. But in cases where complaints were proven, firings and reassignments often took place and new policies often resulted, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Sunday.
The hot line has saved taxpayers more than $400,000 each year, and more than $1.3 million since 1992 by identifying waste, fraud and abuse, according to a report from the state internal auditor's office.
The Times-Dispatch reviewed records of 200 cases, brought from October 1993 to September 1995, in which investigators found waste or abuse after receiving anonymous tips.
Among the highlights:
A department director at the College of William and Mary was fired last April for running a private accounting business out of his campus office.
Becky Norton Dunlop, the state secretary of natural resources, used Capitol Police to drive her to meetings. She stopped after Gov. George Allen's chief of staff told her not to use police officers as chauffeurs.
Nine staff members at the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind in Hampton lost their jobs after turning a local field trip for students into an out-of-state lunch adventure.
A law was rewritten to stop Virginia truckers from dodging thousands of dollars in taxes by titling their vehicles in other states.
``Virginia state government has a reputation for high integrity and as a fiscally responsible state,'' said Joseph D. Freiburger, acting state internal auditor. ``The hot line is designed to keep it that way.''
Most of the anonymous tips investigated by the auditors dealt with mundane personnel issues: long lunches, sleeping on the job, leaving early or arriving late.
Wasting state resources and misusing state vehicles also ranked among frequent gripes, followed by an assortment of charges including hiring spouses, private calls on state telephones, improper political activity and misuse of grant money.
In one case, the former director of human resources at the Virginia Student Assistance Authorities was indicted in August by a Richmond grand jury on three counts of obtaining money by false pretenses.
A tipster reported that S. Michelle Gardner-Lee had failed to report 188 hours of vacation time, worth $8,500, between January 1993 and September 1994. A Richmond circuit judge dismissed the case in October after a witness in Florida refused to return to Virginia to testify.
Anonymous callers also reported state workers who threatened their colleagues.
A Department of Transportation employee at the equipment repair shop in Staunton resigned in April 1994 after colleagues discovered he was recording their phone conversations.
Another transportation department employee in the Williamsburg office resigned in May after co-workers complained of harassment. The auditor's report contained allegations that the man brought a gun to work, made sexual slurs, told racist jokes, poked fun at a co-worker's religion, drank on state property and tried to bully a female employee into dancing on a tabletop at the office.
A majority of the complaints involved six agencies. But Freiburger pointed out that those agencies, which include transportation, corrections and health, also are some of the state's largest.
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