A California DMV employee went to sleep at her desk for three or more hours every day for nearly four years, according to a new state audit.
The report, titled “Investigations Of Improper Activities By State Agencies And Employees: Misuse of State Time, Economically Wasteful Activities, and Misuse of State Property,” was released this week by the California State Auditor.
According to the report, a DMV supervisor told state auditors that she knew one of her workers was sleeping but thought it was only for 20 minutes a day.
However, some co-workers told auditors they were aware that the employee was sleeping longer than that.
The auditor stated:
"A key data operator at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) failed to perform her essential duties over a period of nearly four years because she slept at her desk for extended periods of time during work hours. We estimated that from February 2014 through December 2017, the employee misused more than 2,200 hours of work time as a result of sleeping on the job, costing the State more than $40,000. In addition, the employee’s supervisors failed to take disciplinary or medical action against the employee after initial efforts to address her conduct proved unsuccessful."
The audit also revealed:
In addition to this financial cost, the employee’s behavior negatively affected her colleagues and the public. Her annual evaluations state that she processed an average of only 200 documents daily despite the unit’s expectation that key data operators process 560 documents each day. Witnesses explained that because the employee did not process the expected number of documents, other key data operators had to take on her unfinished workload. Further, the employee’s evaluations mention that she made mistakes when entering data. In fact, during the investigation, a witness explained that the employee’s work was often so inaccurate that the witness would not trust the employee to accurately enter the witness’s own address or vehicle ownership change. Thus, the employee’s behavior may have prevented DMV from providing the public with an appropriate level of service.
The report indicated that the worker remains employed by the DMV, but the department is looking into what other steps should be taken to address the issues.
