Austin Energy Employees Misused City Resources

Audit ATX speaks with Investigator Montana Meeker to talk about a recent investigation into misuse of City resources within Austin Energy. Transcript link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1419979/episodes

Transcript

Sam: Welcome audit enthusiasts and fellow Austinites to another episode of Audit ATX. 

Maxx: The podcast that dives deep into audits and investigations our office does to make Austin better for all residents. 

Sam: We're your hosts: Sam 

Maxx: and Maxx. 

Sam: Today, we're here with investigator Montana Meeker to talk about a recent investigation our office conducted. This investigation goes into misuse of city resources. Welcome, Montana. It's great to have you here with us.

Guest: Thanks. Good to be on the podcast.

Maxx: Absolutely. Welcome, Montana. And to get things kicked off for Sam, myself and our listeners today, would you be able to let us know a little bit about the initial allegation regarding this case?

Guest: Sure. So in April twenty twenty four, we received an allegation that Austin Energy staff were using city vehicles to commute home. It was alleged that management directed the staff members to use their vehicles in this manner.

Sam: Thanks for sharing that with us. Is there any organizational or operational background information that we should know about to set the scene here?

Guest: Sure. The individuals involved were all Austin Energy employees and the Arco Electric System Field Operations Division, which constructs and maintains electricity infrastructure and delivers power to customers. Each employee had an assigned city vehicle that they could use as needed for conducting city business. Now, the City of Austin has a vehicle use policy that states that city vehicles are only to be used for official city business, and to make sure that city vehicles are used appropriately and efficiently. Austin Energy tracks its vehicles using a GPS system.

Maxx: All right. So this report names several subjects here. So Montana, who all do our listeners need to know about to make sure that they can get a good handle on what exactly happened in this case.

Guest: So this investigation had seven total subjects. There was a distribution superintendent named Steven Tucker, a distribution electrician supervisor named Landry Burch. Three distribution construction supervisors Allen Sheffield, Richard Warren and Carl Edwards. All of these people reported to Steven Tucker. And then finally, two distribution construction leads, Logan Dodd and Marcus Riojas and Logan Dodd and Marcus Riojas reported directly to Carlisle Edwards.

Sam: Gotcha. Let's delve deeper into the report. What did the investigation find?

Guest: So we found that these seven Austin Energy employees violated city code by misusing their city vehicles to commute between their homes and their work site without a legitimate city purpose during the time period that we looked at. So July twenty twenty three through July twenty twenty four, about a year in total, we found that they drove approximately fifty six thousand two hundred miles during those commutes, at an estimated cost to the city of thirty seven thousand three hundred dollars. We determined this by reviewing GPS data for the employees assigned vehicles, and we found that they all drove their vehicles home on trips that weren't for city business. By looking at, you know, the addresses that they drove between commuting to various locations inside and outside of Austin over the course of a year.

Sam: Thank you for telling us about what the employees did here. Can you go into more detail about what the supervisor's role was with us?

Guest: Sure. So when questioned about their trips in their city vehicles, the employees all admitted to driving their vehicles home. Three of them said that they drove their vehicles home at the direction of the group's previous director, who, according to them, said that the group's vehicles may be reassigned for under-use if they weren't driven more. Four of the employees said that their current manager told them to drive the vehicles home, and one employee claimed that he only drove his vehicle home when he was on call, um, which we didn't find evidence supporting that claim. In an interview with our office, the previous director over this group said that neither Tucker nor any of the other supervisors should have been driving their vehicles home. And if they were, he alleged that he didn't know about it. The previous director added that it probably happened after he left his role as director of the group in August twenty twenty three. The previous director stated that if he'd known about fleet vehicles being driven home, he would have told his staff to stop and added that there was no reason for them to take their vehicles home. City records showed that the previous director was still briefly in a supervisory role when staff under his chain of command began using their city vehicles to commute home, but the previous director transitioned to a new role within the city. Between July and August thirteenth of twenty twenty three, Tucker, Burch, Edwards and Sheffield specifically took their first trips in their city vehicles to their homes near the end of the month in July twenty twenty three and began regularly commuting with their city vehicles to their home addresses in August of twenty twenty three. We didn't find any written records or other evidence showing that the former director told his staff to drive vehicles home, and thus, we could not conclude that the group's previous director violated city code.

Maxx: I know that our office gives all subjects the opportunity to provide a response to be included in the appendix of our reports. So what did your subjects have to say about all of this? In their response?

Guest: Great question Max. While we did give the subjects the twenty standard business days that we allow all subjects to draft and submit a response to be included in the appendix of our reports if they should choose to do so. None of the seven subjects chose to submit a response, so we actually don't have that.

Sam: Noted. No subject responses this time. To close things out here, can you tell our listeners about how our office finds out about instances such as the one that we went over today.

Guest: Absolutely. Anyone can report suspected fraud, waste or abuse in the city anytime using our online Integrity Violation Reporting form, which can be found on our website at w w w dot austintexas dot gov slash auditor, or by calling our fraud hotline directly at five one two nine seven four two seven nine eight.

Maxx: Well, Montana, we really appreciate you coming on the podcast today to share your great work with Sam and myself and all of our listeners. And we're excited to have you back on ATX again soon.

Guest: Thanks, guys

Maxx: Thanks for listening to this episode of ATX. For more information about this report, you can visit our website at austintexas.gov/auditor or shoot us an email at austinauditor@austintexas.gov. 

Sam: Or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X @AustinAuditor and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcast.