Man, why doesn’t this kind of thing ever happen to LL?

A new report by the Office of Inspector General shows at least 20 people who were not “bona fide employees” of the D.C. schools got a paycheck three years ago, when the IG did an audit of one specific pay period.  The mistake cost the school system $40,208 for that pay period, but based on the IG’s calculations of other pay periods not audited, those same 20 non “bona fides” could have made $303,942. For example, one employee resigned in August 8th, 2007, but was still getting paid on November 23, 2007.

That’s nice work if you can get it. And there are another 90 individuals who the IG couldn’t verify should have received a paycheck who were also paid a total of $95,198.

DCPS agreed with the IG’s findings, and said it had convened a working group to review the IG’s list and work on recovering inappropriately received paychecks.  DCPS has also implemented a new operating system that has stricter controls to prevent similar mistakes from happening again.

The IG also noted that DCPS couldn’t locate 13 out of 179 personnel files the IG’s asked for, and that other essiential files were often misplaced.

In response, DCPS said it has cleaned up its file room.