An audit of the time and leave records of the Human Rights Commission by Nassau County Comptroller Howard S. Weitzman found that the commission "failed to correct time keeping abuses noted in a 2004 audit, and continued to exhibit a general disregard of county time and leave procedures for most of its employees." The Comptroller's Office reviewed time and leave records for commission staff for the period Jan. 1, 2004 through Nov. 9, 2006.

"Employees were paid for time they did not work and took vacation, sick and personal leave without deduction from their allowed days off because the commission failed to comply with County time and leave requirements for years," said Weitzman.

The auditors tested a community research assistant's time sheets for 14 bi-weekly pay periods and found that she had signed in late or left early nearly 50 percent of the time, yet this was not reflected on her time and leave records. As a result, the employee was paid for 117 hours not worked. This was only a portion of the comptroller's findings with regard to this employee. In total, the auditors found that she was not charged for 152.7 leave days taken and took off 38.45 more paid days off than she was entitled to. As of Jan. 18, this matter has still not been resolved or adjusted, the comptroller stated.

"For all practical purposes, no money has been lost to taxpayers because if anything has been given to employees that they were not entitled to, there is a system in place to take it back," Renaire Frierson, executive director of the Nassau County Human Rights Commission said.

Further, the auditors found that Frierson was paid for work at the commission while she worked part time as an adjunct professor and substitute teacher at Nassau Community College. Weitzman stated that the executive director's reported hours at the college conflicted with the hours she recorded working at the commission, despite the fact that she certified on the college's Notice of Absence/Substitution forms (completed for each class taught as a substitute) that her time was not in conflict. Auditors found various instances on the executive director's timesheets in which the two jobs "overlapped." In six of those instances the executive director also failed to work sufficient hours at her commission job to compensate for the time lost teaching at the college, the comptroller stated. The time ranged from 15 minutes to three hours and 15 minutes in any given pay period.

Frierson, a Freeport resident who has been in her position since 2001, said there "was a lot of shuffling around" between deputy county executives.

"At every opportunity I discussed with the DCE [deputy county executive] and sent emails and memos and asked for help and a time and leave person," Frierson explained. "I asked whether my time would be entered by someone else and was told it would not be. Just about the time the audit began I got approval to hire a time and leave person and that person did not start until almost the same week the audit ended in November 2006. She still has not been formally trained in time and leave. It's quite a lot of material to learn."

Frierson said she has an issue with the manner in which the conclusions were stated.

"The comptroller take on the audit would have been more fair if it said things like 'although permission was requested, it was not granted' and 'although Mrs. Frierson should not have been doing it, she did do it,'" she said.

In addition, Weitzman stated that the multiple responsibilities held by the executive director at the commission, including that of timekeeper, payroll clerk, and supervisor, created a serious absence of internal controls in the department.

"One person cannot be responsible for so many overlapping duties," said Weitzman. "These conflicting responsibilities leave the door wide open for inaccuracies and improprieties."

Frierson said about the issues surrounding her performing time and leave duties, "I thought as a department head that the buck stops here and I took the responsibility to do it myself because I could not get help from human resources."

"I could not hire anybody," she added. "It seems that me doing it was a problem. I know it would be a problem not to do it. This is a function that most departments have a dedicated person to do. Getting on track is a full time function at this point. The person is working on it now, but it's part-time."

Weitzman went on to say that a review of six of the commission's 10 employee's time records, including the executive director, over 10 pay periods, found that employees had taken a total of 59 days off that had never been posted into the Nassau Unified Human Resource System (NUHRS); 19 "request for leave" forms could not be located at the commission and one employee refused to complete any "request for leave" forms at all, resulting in the employee taking unauthorized leave. Although this employee was disciplined, the condition continued to exist, the comptroller stated.

The auditors also examined whether corrective action had been taken following the comptroller's 2004 report on the Economic Development Vertical, which included a time and leave review of the Human Rights Commission and first identified problems with the community research assistant, who had been paid for hours not worked. The auditors found that the Human Rights Commission had failed to either correct its time-keeping or recover salary overpayments, as recommended by the comptroller's office, continuing the inadequate time and leave record-keeping in that department.

"The commission should be run professionally and in accordance with county policy," said Weitzman. "Sloppy time and leave record keeping destroys public trust and costs taxpayers thousands of dollars. Corrective action needs to be taken immediately. We recommend that the time-keeping be assigned to another department to review and sign off on all time sheets so that the commission can be brought into compliance."

Additional recommendations by the audit team include advising the administration to review the appropriateness of an employee having another job that conflicts with the employee's county hours.

The Commission on Human Rights was established in 1963. In addition to a paid executive director and 10 paid employees, 15 commissioners, representing men and women of various ages and ethnicities and persons with disabilities, are appointed by the county executive, and serve without compensation.

The full text of the audit may be read or downloaded from the Comptroller's website at http://www.nassaucountyny.gov/agencies/Comptroller/index.html.

Jaime L. Tomeo contributed to this story.