Posted on 08/28/23
| News Source: FOX45
Mismanagement by supervisors allowed work crews to sit idle and inflate work hours to cover their tracks, according to a new report by the Baltimore County Office of the Inspector General.
The investigation was started after a complaint submitted in February, claiming workers at the Grinder Pump Section of the Pumping and Treatment Division in the Department of Public Works were not working during their assigned work hours and were falsifying work orders, according to the report.
Investigators said they found three crews with significant amounts of idle time. One crew spent more than 81% of their work day without completing an order, according to the report, and two other crews spent nearly half workdays sitting idle.
The crews also started their days significantly later and left hours before their shifts were supposed to end, according to the report.
The problem tracking crews was blamed on the county's systems used to track work. The investigation found that managers were not using city tools to identify workers who had backlogs of work.
The report recommends that supervisors get training in the tools the county uses to track workers and work orders - NexTraq and Cityworks. The report also reccomends establishing policies for filling out work orders, either at the beginning or end of the day, or in the field if the technology allows.
In a response to the report, County Administrative Officer Stacy Rodgers said that managers and employees would be given training on the systems used to track work. Rodgers also said that NexTraq and Cityworks were never designed to work together and times in them may not align perfectly.