Union official who missed CalPERS work during pandemic won’t regain six months’ pay, judge rules

A CalPERS IT specialist who was also a top state union official was unsuccessful in his attempt to restore his pay after CalPERS determined he submitted fraudulent time sheets.

Lonnie “Tony” Owens, a former vice president at SEIU Local 1000, spent six months away from his state job after volunteering to perform contact tracing of COVID-19 cases in the middle of 2020. Owens said he was doing a combination of union work and contact tracing in that time.

CalPERS determined Owens didn’t receive an official contact tracing assignment from the California Department of Public Health and didn’t communicate with his superiors over the six months. The retirement system in turn determined $44,000 worth of time sheets from the period to be fraudulent. The system suspended Owens without pay for six months through a notice of adverse action issued in June 2021.

Owens appealed the suspension to the State Personnel Board, arguing it constituted double jeopardy since he had already been suspended for a shorter period of time before the full six-month suspension.

He also characterized the suspension as retaliation for his union activities.

Administrative Law Judge Lori Green, in a Feb. 17 decision, determined Owens had indeed assisted “numerous state employees” with pandemic-related health and safety issues during his time away from his IT job.

“However, while laudable, (Owens’) actions do not absolve him of wrongdoing or excuse his misconduct,” since he wasn’t doing work for CalPERS or the Department of Public Health, and didn’t have permission from his employer to do what he was doing, Green wrote in her decision.

“CalPERS approved (Owens’) request to volunteer as a (contact tracer), and, in return, Appellant violated their trust and received compensation to which he was not entitled,” she wrote.

Owens was elected vice president of bargaining at the union, which represents about 100,000 state employees, in 2018. He and two other vice presidents clashed with former union president Yvonne Walker, and in December 2019 the union’s board of directors reduced the amount of time the three could spend getting paid to do union work.

Owens didn’t notify CalPERS that any of his time away was spent on union work, so the retirement system couldn’t seek reimbursement from Local 1000 for that portion of his time, Green determined.

In a text Friday, Owens said he was proud of his work during the pandemic.

“Obviously, being publicly branded as a liar and a thief hurts me and my family, but I swore an oath, I made a commitment before the pandemic,” he said in the text. “I’m forever thankful for who came forward to speak to my character and my integrity and the things we were able to accomplish.”

Owens said he has returned to work at CalPERS and is a steward at Local 1000.

This story was originally published March 7, 2022 at 5:00 AM.