California manager encouraged state applicants to lie on application, audit reports
A manager who worked at six different state agencies improperly operated a coaching service for prospective public employees, providing answers to online exams and encouraging applicants to lie on their resumes, a state auditor report found.
For roughly two decades an unnamed manager taught classes on “how to get a state job,” which cost up to $600 and led to several unlawful hires, the auditor found.
The finding was part of the California State Auditor’s “improper activities” report published this week, highlighting wasteful and inefficient government activity based on over 1,300 allegations submitted in 2023. Of the those allegations, two-thirds lacked enough evidence for an investigation.
Grant Parks, the California State Auditor, said issues identified in the report cost the state $2.6 million. The state releases the report “as a deterrent for state agencies and state employees so they might avoid similar improper governmental activities.”
Auditors found the manager — who has worked for the state on and off since 2000 — submitted false information on at least four different state applications of his own. He secured a position at an unnamed department that came with a salary of more than $120,000 in 2022.
When confronted by auditors, the manager denied allegations that he encouraged clients to lie about their work experience. The manager claimed that inaccuracies on his own applications were mistakes, not intentional misrepresentations.
Prior to this appointment, the manager applied for a Caltrans position in 2017. In that application he claimed he was employed with the Health Care Services Department. But auditors found he was not working at the healthcare department, having failed his probation for not showing up for work because he was in jail at that time.
Several clients who sought hiring advice from the manager told auditors they included false information on their applications, per his suggestion, which led to unlawful hires at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the Department of Public Health and the Department of Justice.
One client, who embellished the role and length of time she worked at a company prior to her position with the state, told auditors that she expressed concern about misrepresenting herself. She relayed that “the manager told her that the state was not the FBI, implying that the state would not catch her misrepresentations,” the audit read.
The audit reported that the manager was recently terminated from his position with the unnamed agency because he did not have skills needed for the position. As a result, the manager returned to a previous role at Caltrans.
In a separate instance of waste, the Department of Health Care Services improperly sent duplicate checks of nearly $875,000 to Los Angeles County in 2022. The county issued a reimbursement check for that amount to the department that administers Medi-Cal later that year. But an accounting supervisor with Health Care Services failed to cash the check.
“Had our office not received and investigated the complaint, Health Care Services would likely not have followed up on the unclaimed check and could have forfeited the opportunity to recoup the funds,” auditors wrote in the report. Auditors expected the department still has enough time to reclaim the state’s money.
In another example of misconduct highlighted in the report, a Chief Information Security officer with an unnamed agency shared personal information of job applicants with a prospective student assistant.
The officer said he inadvertently shared the applications for 35 candidates, which included birthdays addresses and partial Social Security numbers, to one person applying for the position. He included the message: “so that you understand your competition. You cannot share this.”
The auditors recommended the department take disciplinary action against the officer for improperly sharing personal information.
