The new audit of the Chief State’s Attorney’s Office, for the years 2009 and 2010, is out. Here’s a recommendation highlight, with agency response:
“The Chief State’s Attorney of the Division of Criminal Justice, along with the State’s Attorneys representing the 13 district offices, should enforce compliance with the training requirements under Section 51-279c of the General Statutes, should monitor employee work schedules and habits effectively and should not grant sick pay to employees without the documentation required by Section 5-247-11 of the Regulations of State Agencies.
Comment:
During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2010, more than half of the prosecutors did not meet the statutorily-required training requirements. We also observed certain employees located near our field audit site in the Chief State’s Attorney’s spending a noticeable amount of time on non work-related activities, among other issues.”
Here’s the agency response:
“In FY11 80.5% of prosecutors fully met their training requirements and 95.5% of all prosecutors had at least partial training. The Division will include compliance with the training requirements under Section 51-279c of the General Statutes in performance evaluations for prosecutors in the future. The General Assembly approved a Training Coordinator position for the Division for FY12, which would have enhanced the agency’s ability to plan, coordinate and track training, but the position may be lost as a result of the required budget reductions.
The Division will monitor work schedules and habits of employees more closely. In addition, Supervisory Assistant State’s Attorneys will be directed to submit their own time and attendance to their State’s Attorneys for approval. The Division of Criminal Justice adheres to the Department of Information Technology’s policies regarding the use of electronic communications devices and internet usage. All Division employees will be reminded of these policies and, specifically, will be advised that the Division will monitor usage of all state-issued equipment to ensure compliance with applicable policy restrictions, and will provide appropriate discipline if warranted.
The Division requires medical documentation for employee sick absences of five (5) or more consecutive days. The auditors reviewed the time and attendance of an employee who retired in 2008 and found that the employee had used sick time (never in excess of five consecutive sick days) in the months before her retirement, which appeared to indicate a pattern. The absences were never brought to the attention of the Division’s central administrative staff by the employee’s supervisor. Supervisors will be reminded to carefully review attendance of their subordinates to identify any potential abuse of sick time. The Payroll Office will provide quarterly leave usage reports to supervisory personnel to help them identify any pattern of absences that should be addressed.”