BALTIMORE — Baltimore City's Inspector General on Tuesday released a report that found an engineer with the Department of Public Works had been working a second full-time job while simultaneously teleworking for the city.
The Inspector General was tipped off about it in May 2021.
Since the pandemic began back in March 2020, the engineer had been relegated to teleworking -- Monday through Friday from 8:30am to 4:30pm.
In May 2020 the engineer applied and was hired for a position at another private company. On their resume, the engineer listed working for DPW up until 2020. Because of this, the company assumed the engineer was no longer with the city.
Turns out, the new job was also remote with essentially the same hours as the city position.
It wasn't until 2021 when the engineer applied for a transfer within the new company, that it was discovered they'd been working two jobs at the same time.
While the city's Administrative Manual Policy prohibits concurrent employment elsewhere, it does allow for employees to work outside of city government as long as it does not violate any other policies, rules, and ordinances, such as ethics laws. The policy makes no mention of rules when it comes specifically to teleworking.
Although the city requires an annual written agreement between an employee and their supervisor that details the terms and conditions of teleworking, the engineer never signed it.
The engineer also wasn't required to submit financial disclosure forms, which could have potentially revealed income from the other job.
Despite working both jobs at once, the inspector general found no evidence that the engineer physically used city resources while doing so.
In response to the investigation, DPW said going forward it would work to implement new measures to avoid similar incidents in the future.
They include the following.
- Ensure all employees of the City who are teleworking have a signed telework agreement on file.
- Evaluate telework authorization if performance issues are identified while an employee is on telework status.
- Issue guidance to agencies and employees about secondary employment outside the City.
- Consider reviewing the Policy AM 200-1: Concurrent City Employment Prohibition and enhance the policy to specifically address outside employment, both full time or part-time while required to work or are on call for City employment.
According to the investigative report, the engineer remains employed by DPW and has been assigned to the Water & Waste Water Bureau since 2009.
