A whistleblower said high-level prison officials were wasting money. Was the inquiry biased?

Two high-ranking officials in California’s prison system might have broken state rules so that one of them could work from home, make a 250-mile commute on state time and use a state vehicle for the drive.

But the state’s taxpayers will never know for sure, due to the “flawed and biased” way the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation handled a 2018 whistleblower complaint making those allegations, according to a new report from the Office of the Inspector General.

The office, which performs regular reviews of the corrections department in its role as an official watchdog, published a special report Wednesday on the allegations and the department’s response. The report doesn’t identify the officials or their job titles, but says both have retired.

Corrections Secretary Kathleen Allison, who was appointed after the review was finished, said in a letter responding to the report that it was “based on incomplete or inaccurate information and speculation.”

In the complaint, filed in October 2018, the whistleblower alleged a high-ranking official had approved a work arrangement in which another high-ranking official with a salary of nearly $13,000 per month worked from home every other week.

While the official was at home, a lower-ranking employee had to fill in for them, and received extra pay for doing so. Another employee had to take on some of that employee’s work, and yet another employee took on new work. Three people got pay bumps to make up for the at-home official, according to the complaint as outlined in the report. The changes cost the state $9,750 over seven months, according to the report.

Allison said in her letter that the department followed policies in approving a telework agreement for the official, including getting approval from an Executive Appointments Unit. She said the Office of Personnel Services approved the payments to those who filled in for the official.

When the working-from-home official did come to work, they sometimes took a state vehicle home and left before the end of the work week to start their four-hour commute, according to the complaint as outlined in the report.

Investigators from the Inspector General’s Office were able to determine that the vehicle was parked at the official’s house for 86 days in a four-month period even though the official didn’t qualify for a vehicle home storage permit, according to the report.

Allison said in her letter that the vehicle usage was allowed and appropriate since the job required travel to different offices in the state.

“Flawed and biased?”

The inspector general’s report says the process was biased against the whistleblower from the start.

The corrections department launched an inquiry after receiving the complaint, but didn’t interview the whistleblower, according to the report.

When the department selected someone to lead the inquiry, it was a long-time colleague of the high-ranking official, according to the report.

A report on the completed inquiry “ignored evidence that supported the allegations, but included irrelevant information that revealed the reviewer’s bias and impugned the complainant’s character,” according to the inspector general’s report.

Allison disputed the characterization that the inquiry was biased.

“From the outset, the steps taken were intended to ensure independence, provide transparency, and exceed typical scrutiny because of the very nature of the classifications of the complainant and the accused,” she said in her response letter.

Inspector General Roy Wesley’s office met with corrections officials in February 2019 to raise concerns about the review, and suggested the department get an independent, outside review.

The department took the suggestion, but circumvented the state’s usual contracting process and hired someone who was already a consultant for the department doing education and training, according to the report. The department initially provided the consultant with its review but not the original complaint, according to the report.

Allison said that the consultant, a retired police chief and former inspector general, conducted an independent analysis.

Wesley called on the corrections department to institute a special process for reviewing complaints against high-level officials. In the past, the department has referred similar high-level complaints to the Department of Justice or the Highway Patrol, according to the report.

Allison agreed with the suggestion, saying the department is developing a policy.

This story was originally published December 11, 2020 at 5:00 AM.