Audit of State Department of Banking Finds Abuse of Sick Time and Computers That Were Purchased, But Never Used.

In a new audit of the banking department, state auditors report that one employee “was found to have frequent and habitual use of sick time,” including 272 hours of sick time between January 2007 and February, 2010. Of that total, 200 hours were used before or after weekends, holidays and vacation. Also, two manager-level employees, taking the same business trip, earned different amounts of comp time.

 The funniest thing – by funny the Blogster means upsetting for taxpayers – is the department’s purchase of more than $75,000 worth of computer equipment that was never used, including 37 desktop computers, 28 laptops and 38 docking stations, plus a $150,000 software license that was unusued as of February. “Hardware purchases were made that exceeded the department’s needs,” the audit says.  Here’s the agency response: “Due to early retirements and funding issues for necessary IT projects, the agency had excess hardware that could not be deployed in a timely fashion.”