State Employee Skips Work On Friday For 17 Years

Officials say retired New York prison food services director Howard Dean had a really hard time waiting for the weekend, so he skipped work on Fridays for 17 years. Dean made sure, however, to include those Friday hours on his time cards. The extra hours and bogus travel expenses netted Dean nearly $500,000, according to officials. From the article: "State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and Inspector General Joseph Fisch said their investigation found Howard Dean, 64, of Locke, bilked the state Treasury of about $230,000 by skipping work at the state's Food Production Center in Rome every Friday for 17 years but claiming the hours on his time cards, the New York Post reported Wednesday."

Uhh...

[kainewynd2]

found Howard Dean, 64, of Locke, bilked the state Treasury of about $230,000 by skipping work at the state's Food Production Center in Rome every Friday for 17 years but claiming the hours on his time cards

Maybe they should look at the management during his time there as well? Just a friendly suggestion...

Re:Uhh...

[pushing-robot]

You'd think they would have at least noticed when he started running for president. It's like he wanted to get caught.

Re:

[MindlessAutomata]

I bet he screamed when he got caught.

Re:

[batquux]

Let's see... $230,000 / (17 * 52 * 8)... roughly $32.52 / hour! And it seems there's an opening...

Re:

[clone53421]

That probably includes benefits: pension, health insurance, etc.

There was an even worse case

[George_Ou]

There was a woman who worked (for San Francisco I think) on night shifts. She would come in and punch in, go home and sleep, come back in pajamas to punch in during break, then come back to clock out. She did this for several years. Of course the real question is that if no one missed her all those years, does the city really need this position in the first place.

Re:

[stonewallred]

Lol, unions tried and tried and still haven't managed to get into RJR. Might be because back in the 60s through early 00's RJR was one of the best employers in the world. Health insurance that was free and they even had a highly rated and well staffed private hospital capable of anything but the most severe emergencies. Free glasses and braces and dental care for employees and their families. Medicine was $4.00 a prescription back in the 70s and 80's, no matter what it was. Not to mention stock options that

Re:

[Pharmboy]

This is why unions are so important, to help stop the type of treatment that RJR has subjected its employees to. And best of all, the unions only request a portion of your paycheck and that you vote for who they say to vote for.

Re:There was an even worse case

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The continued existence of these positions contribute to maintaining the membership and revenue of the union to which all of these crucial civil servants belong. It is imperative that these unions continue to enjoy increasing and unassailable power forever, and you are well advised to cease your questioning of this policy.

In private industry, there are organizations that allow people to draw enormous salaries -- much larger than any state employee will ever make -- without doing any actual work at all, for years at a time. These organizations generally go by names like "board of directors" and "executive suite," and interestingly, they spend much of their time trying (successfully, as comments like yours show) to convince people that unions are the root of all evil. Why do you suppose that could be?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. At least in this case the guy was at work Monday - Thursday. If he was finishing everything that needed to be done in that frame then there wouldn't have been any cues from a productivity standpoint. If the woman mentioned never was there though, then they literally didn't need her.

Never question the logic of government positions though. Sometimes I think they're there just to give people a job (not always - I'm a government employee myself - just for some positions). Where I'm at we have 1 pos

Re:

[Chrisq]

At least she should have had the decency to bring a sleeping bag into work and sleep [aronline.co.uk]. Where would the British motor industry been today if we had that kind of Attitu .... oh wait!

For the love of Cthulu help me

[lul_wat]

Why with firehose articles if I click to read a comment it reloads the whole page and only shows that comment?? Then I have to go back and reload the whole page to see comment subjects In normal slashdot articles it just makes space for the comment on the page

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Same with idle aricles. Very annoying.

Re:

[Rhaban]

The worst is that it unfolds the comment first, then proceeds to the redirection. I think i'll install a "disable javascript" emergency button that i'll hit just between these two events.

Re:

[clone53421]

Strip “idle.” out of the URL and it kills off the Idle-styled CSS/javascript buggery.

http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&type=story&sid=10/04/16/2021221 [slashdot.org]

Re:

[lul_wat]

I would mod you up but I can't. You sir are a scholar and a gentleman. Unfortunately it's not a perma-fix

Re:

[clone53421]

But now, why doesn't a guy like you have higher karma? *looks at your comment history: Israel, Israel, China, China, Israel, Palestine, Apple* oic

I’ve been at the karma cap for quite a long time now. Flamebait and troll are more about how you say something than what you actually have to say.

Re:

[BitZtream]

Well, in Chrome, the comment expands for me, then the browser jumps to a new page with the comment alone. Just like you, it works fine on normal pages and doesn't jump to a single comment entry.

I suspect some javascript issues. As I write this I also look up at the button above the subject box ... which is apparently the 'cancel reply' button, I say apparently because I had to figure out wtf it said since reading dark green text on a dark grey background is rather difficult.

Perhaps slashdot should go back

God bless the Baby Boomers

[Rogerborg]

This was likely agreed on a handshake back in nineteen-dickety-six. Heck, the guy has probably got a fishing boat and a lifetime's supply of Cubans (cigars, gardeners, whatever) written into his pension.

Sounds like

[Higaran]

They did this in an episode of Malcolm in the middle, Hal the dad was on trial for, like bribery or corroption or something, but then all the supposed proof all happened on a friday, it turned out to be a setup and they guy had the proof of everywhere he had been playing hookey at on fridays, like the zoo and county fair and stuff.

Re:

[dustman81]

Hal was charged with embezzlement for allegedly bilking his company out of millions and placed under house arrest. Hal casually mentions to Malcolm that he has played hooky from work on Fridays for years. The evidence presented in court against him was that all the events occurred on Fridays. Once Malcolm realizes this, he has his father find all of his pictures and tickets of him playing hooky, which were time stamped on the Fridays that the embezzlement took place, thus showing that there was no way Hal c

in addition to restitution...

[sdnoob]

he should be working monday through friday for 5 to 10 to make up for it.

Re:

[MBGMorden]

It said he was a director. That's upper management. These folks usually aren't too heavily scrutinized as there aren't too many steps up the ladder till you get to the top.

Re:

[JWSmythe]

It's actually pretty easy in most places, if you know how things work, and have an eye for cheating the system.

I'd guess in his position he had the opportunity to travel to sites on a regular basis. It would be easy enough to schedule to be at a site say Thursday and Friday. When you get there, tell the people at the site that you are scheduled to be there for only Thursday. Finish up what you're doing Thursday afternoon, and enjoy your 3 day weekend on the clock.

I usually

Re:

[krazytekn0]

He was the supervisor. Being a director there, he really would have very little direct supervision, if any, more like a board meeting once a week or month