Wednesday, January 26, 2000
3 engineers face firing in street deception
Council seeks wider investigation
BY ROBERT ANGLEN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Three of Cincinnati's top engineers are on paid administrative leave and face discipline that could include firing for not catching seven years of fabricated road repair reports.
But that's not enough for City Council members, who are calling for an investigation by an independent special counsel into why city engineers reported completing $15 million in basic road repairs that never got done.
Although road repair reports have already been turned over to the county prosecutor — and despite continuing inquiries by the city's internal auditor and the Office of Municipal Investigations — council members said Tuesday they want to determine the extent of what they called “the fraud” and whether City Manager John Shirey is to blame for a lack of oversight.
“I don't think Mr. Shirey should have the ability to manipulate this investigation,” Councilman Charlie Winburn said during a public hearing Tuesday. “The three employees who have been singled out are being scapegoated.”
Three current employees and one former employee were named in a report released last week by Internal Auditor Greg Hanfbauer, who said guesswork, management neglect and possible criminal conduct led employees to lie about how many roads were being repaired year after year.
Mr. Hanfbauer said the city manager called for his office to do two investigations, one in October to determine the scope of the problem and another in December to find those responsible.
Most of the blame was leveled on former senior engineer Doug Perry, who resigned in 1998 and was responsible for amassing the road report data.
Mr. Hanfbauer said Mr. Perry fabricated information and his three supervisors contributed to the problem “by their actions or inactions.”
But Mr. Perry said Tuesday he did not attempt to deceive anyone.
“All of that money can be accounted for,” he said before
referring questions to his lawyer.
“We see no basis to believe he did anything to deceive anyone,” said lawyer Bill Seitz. “We categorically deny there was an attempt to deceive anybody.”
He said Mr. Perry cooperated fully with internal auditors to try to explain the problems and the methods used for calculating street repair work.
Not so, Mr. Hanfbauer told the City Council on Tuesday.
“There is one person right now who knows what happened, and he has decided not to tell us why,” he said of Mr. Perry.
In annual reports between 1991 and 1997, city engineers reported that 818 lane-miles of roads were repaired at a cost of about $65 million. But in an internal audit found 460 lane miles had actually been completed for about $50.5 million.
The upshot of this is that 60 percent of city streets are not in good condition and city transportation officials say it could take 20 years to catch up.
“None of the information forwarded to the city manager or the City Council was based on fact,” Mr. Hanfbauer said. “The city manager has concluded that discipline should be considered for the three engineers.”
In responses to the audit, City Engineer Prem Garg, Principal Highway Engineer Brian Pickering and Jay Gala, the principal engineer responsible for construction management, said they did not know about the misreporting and had no way to stop it.
“It is not the responsibility of the city engineer to verify the data provided,” Mr. Garg said in his response. He added that he disagreed with most of the audit findings.
Mr. Seitz said if there was a problem in the way road reports were done, it was the system that was at fault, not his client.
“As far as Mr. Perry is concerned, he put together the reports the same way he did every year,” Mr. Seitz said.
He said Mr. Perry was never given a chance to write a response to the audit findings.
“The guy who they are trying to hang all of this on has never even seen the reports,” Mr. Seitz said.
In reporting street repair work, Mr. Perry counted all the work that was done during a year. Mr. Seitz said his client was not told to separate accounts for different type of work.
That meant money set aside for basic street repair work was getting spent on various types of road projects, Mr. Seitz said.
And at the end of the year Mr. Perry counted all the work as road repairs.
Transportation Director John Deatrick made similar statements two weeks ago, saying the $15 million was diverted to projects that shouldn't have gotten the money.
Because of political pressure from the City Council and community groups to get particular streets repaired, money slated for basic road repairs went to 25 other high-profile projects.
Mr. Deatrick, who became director of the newly formed transportation department in November, said that employees could face serious discipline, including possible termination.
Comparing the discipline proc ess to a grand jury, he said the employees would all be given a chance to present a defense at a hearing and that any recommended punishments could be appealed to the Civil Service Commission.
While council members said they were offended by some of the excuses offered, some said the problem is a reflection of the city manager.
“Citizens have a right to be incensed,” said Councilman Paul Booth, who called for the hearing as part of the Neighborhood and Public Works Committee meeting.
Mr. Booth said that, even after Mr. Shirey discovered the problem, he failed to inform the council and held onto incriminating reports for weeks before making them public.
Mr. Shirey, who did not attend the meeting, refused to comment Tuesday night.
“I'm sorry Mr. Shirey is not here,” Mr. Winburn said. “I want to know why only three employees were targeted in this.”
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