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Audit Examines Del. Legislators With State Jobs
04/29/2008 9:36 AM ET DOVER, Del. (AP)- The General Assembly should revise its policies in order to keep better tabs on state legislators who also hold state jobs, according to the state auditor's office. The recommendation is included in a new report released by the auditor's office, which looked at time records of lawmakers who held state agency jobs in fiscal 2007. Auditors specifically recommended that legislative committees keep detailed sign-in and sign-out sheets for each meeting, not just attendance lists. The lack of such record-keeping makes it difficult to determine whether state employees who serve on legislative committees are being paid for both their legislative jobs and their state jobs at the same time, auditors said. The issue was raised after auditors discovered that a state legislator chose to remain on the job at Delaware Technical and Community College instead of attending a legislative meeting, thus receiving compensation from two tax-paid sources concurrently. Auditors noted that under that current dual-employment statute, a legislator is not required to dock his or her legislative pay for not showing up for legislative duties. "As a result, each legislator in this situation has the discretion to double-dip without the consequences set forth in the policy," deputy attorney general Frank Broujos wrote in a February letter to state auditor Tom Wagner Jr. But in response to a recommendation that the General Assembly revisit the dual-employment statute, the legislator's controller general suggested that the potential for abuse lies with the state agency, not the General Assembly. Controller general Russ Larson noted that lawmakers employed by state agencies are required to record their time away from their state jobs, regardless of whether they are attending to legislative business "or simply going to the doctor or a grocery store." Larson also noted that lawmakers who receive stipends for serving on certain committees, including the budget committees, receive the stipends, as well as their salaries, regardless of whether they actually attend the meetings. "The only way there can be abuse of dual payments is if they do not record their absence from their primary job," Larson wrote in a letter to Wagner last year. Wagner said Monday that while auditors check the time records for legislators' state jobs, legislative time sheets would provide a more accurate picture of lawmakers' comings and goings. The bigger issue, Wagner added, is whether lawmakers are working on legislative matters when they are supposed to be tending to their state agency duties. "For us as auditors, that's next to impossible to document," he said. Wagner also pointed out that compliance problems with the dual-employment law tend to be the fault of state agencies, not the lawmakers themselves. Auditors found in the latest report, for example, that the Red Clay School District did not have written dual-employment policies and procedures and, perhaps as a result, shortchanged Republican Rep. Nick Manolakos, a former school administrator, $306.72 last year. The district said in response to the audit that it would establish a written policy. Meanwhile, auditors determined that Rep. Vincent Lofink, R-Bear, was overpaid $836.43 last year by the New Castle County Vocational Technical School District. The district blamed the error on administrative turnover and the loss of a key clerical employee. Officials said they would recover the money through payroll deductions, and that additional checks and balances have been put in place to avoid a recurrence.
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