Audit finds California DMV worker slept on job for 4 years

A California Department of Motor Vehicles employee slept three hours a day on the job for nearly four years-- all while her supervisors knew, according to a state auditor’s report released Tuesday.  The employee still works there.

Between February 2014 and December 2017, the employee snoozed through an estimated 2,200 hours’ worth of work, costing California taxpayers more than $40,000, the audit said.

The worker, who was not named in the report, is a data operator responsible for updating information on address changes and new vehicle ownership forms.   According to the report, a typical data operator averages 560 documents a day, but the worker managed only 200, leaving other data operators to pick up the slack, the audit found. Her colleagues also claimed her work was filled with errors, the report said.

The worker’s supervisors had been aware of her misuse of time but “failed to take disciplinary or medical action against the employee after initial efforts to address her conduct proved unsuccessful,” the audit said.

That was just one case in a investigative report that also highlighted other "improper governmental activities" brought to their attention by whistleblowers.

The report also found that two facilities operations employees at California State University, Fresno "engaged in egregious and continued time and attendance abuse" by taking extended breaks or leaving campus without accounting for their time.

From 2013 through 2017, two employees failed to account for more than 5,100 hours of work, costing the State more than $111,000 in salary paid for work not performed.

In another case for about two years, an employee at Kern Valley State Prison misused state time by regularly leaving work up to 45 minutes early as a result of inadequate supervision. It was estimated that the employee failed to account for 312 hours of missed work time, costing the State nearly $9,000.