Denver Auditor Dennis Gallagher, who worked only 16 eight-hour days at the office during the second half of last year, wants salaried city employees to report their time daily.
“The principle of public accountability … embodies the concept that public employees should not be paid for time they do not work or which they use authorized pay leave,” Gallagher wrote in a Sept. 14 letter to City Council and Mayor John Hickenlooper.
The letter disclosed that last year the city overpaid departing employees more than $75,000 in accrued sick and vacation leave.
Gallagher’s office blamed Hickenlooper’s administration, saying city agencies are not keeping appropriate tabs on employee leave.
“There are agency payroll technicians under the mayor’s administration … who need to be more accountable,” said spokesman Denis Berckefeldt. “We’ve offered to work with them and help them with training, but if they don’t want to do it, we can’t make them.”
But City Attorney Cole Finegan said this was “the first I’ve heard of this offer.”
“I can assure you that Mayor Hickenlooper is fiscally responsible and (that) we take every step possible to assure compliance with the law,” he said.
Accumulated leave is not calculated in final city paychecks but rather after a separation audit, Berckefeldt said. When an audit discovers a worker took too much time off, it is too late to deduct it from their pay.
The overpayment problem has plagued the city for years. Over the past five years, the city has averaged more than $80,000 a year in overpayments.
One of Gallagher’s recommendations on how to avoid problems is to have salaried employees report their time each day. His office does that with his own employees.
Except for himself. The Denver Post reported this year that Gallagher took six weeks off and worked only 16 eight-hour days in the last half of 2004.
Gallagher, who is elected, declined to accumulate sick and vacation time. Therefore, Berckefeldt said, there is no reason to keep track of it.
