Mar 18, 2009 10:54 pm US/Eastern
I-Team: Quincy DPW Workers Wasting Time & Money
QUINCY (WBZ) ―
An I-Team investigation has discovered Department of Public Workers employees in Quincy are getting paid for doing very little during a time when Quincy is struggling financially.
The investigation revealed while the workers were supposed to be busy cleaning streets and repairing potholes, some were hardly working at all and were even doing personal business on taxpayers' dimes.
The investigation uncovers the waste in a city that's already facing a financial crisis.
WORKERS SITTING DOWN ON THE JOB
The bands played and the clowns waved as Quincy's Christmas parade rolled down Hancock Street while public works crews sat in a park and watched for hours. That was your taxpayer dollars not at work. Those workers were making overtime for sitting on the side of the road taking in the sights.
"The mayor has a policy -- it's a days work for a days pay," said DPW human resources head Steve McGrath.
A days work for a days pay may be the policy at the Quincy DPW yard, but we found some of the city's public works crews here hardly working.
When the trucks rolled out the I-Team was right behind. We followed the crews for eight days in November and December, and during most of that time we found some crews just driving around, running errands and not doing much work at all.
"There's nothing worse, especially in hard times, to see waste taking place," one taxpayer said.
Back on parade day we found a lot of waste as we tracked truck 28. In the morning the crew headed out to buy some flowers, headed back to the yard to drop them off, then pulled over on the side of the rode where they sit, sit and sit for three hours as the parade passed by.
TAXPAYERS HIT HARD AS DPW WORKERS GET OVERTIME
Taxpayers are picking up the tab for the gas and the overtime. Eventually truck 28's crew raked up some cups. The total time worked when we followed was about 15 to 20 minutes in five hours.
One of the workers made almost $43 an hour.
More than $5,000 of overtime handed out for DPW workers to work a parade comes as the city faces a fiscal crisis, and Quincy taxpayers like Carol Fischer are being hit with a 14 percent property tax increase.
"They're making time and a half and barely working," Fischer said. "I think that's disgusting."
WHAT'S BEING DONE
"So what do you say to the taxpayers of Quincy? I'm sure they expect more from the city of Quincy?" I-Team's Kathy Curran asked.
"They should expect more," McGrath said.
We showed what we caught on camera to the public works commissioner and McGrath.
"The mayor has made it very plain that he's trying to cut back on overtime because we're facing a budget fiscal crisis," McGrath said.
On one day truck 29 headed out and the first part of the day was spent doing personal business.
There's a stop at the bank, next stop is at a local bakery to pick up some sweets, then it's a ride across the city to drop the goods off at one of the worker's homes.
"If there are people who aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing during the day and working as they're supposed to do we'll deal with it," McGrath said.
The city also has to deal with misuse of these trucks. City trucks were being used to pick up and drop off this worker for his shift, and the I-Team caught the mayor's brother-in-law, Ed Leary, taking a Quincy DPW truck home even though that's against the city rules. Leary spots us and has a change of heart.
The public works commissioner said the city is formulating a plan to look at the overtime and will most likely take disciplinary action against the workers exposed in our investigation. Right now the city is facing a $12 million deficit so workers not working and overtime are both big problems.
One example of overtime earned -- Ed Leary, who is a general foreman, made $31,000 in overtime alone last year. But the city said Leary's overtime is high because of snow removal.
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