County probe into padded mileage went unheeded
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Chicago Sun-Times
By Steve Patterson, Staff Reporter
June 26, 2006
Cook County Highway Department employee Allen Back reported
he drove 720 work-related miles in his personal car between
August and September in 2004.
But when county investigators checked the odometer on Back's
Hyundai, they determined he had driven only 244 miles total
during that time, an internal county memo obtained by the Sun-Times
shows.
The memo and other investigative documents detail how Back was
accused of tacking on a total of nearly 1,000 miles to his odometer
in late 2004. But the county probe apparently fell on deaf ears,
as officials never have disciplined Back or asked him to repay
the county for the miles he allegedly overbilled.
The documents include a memo from highway personnel supervisor
William Krystyniak, a former Chicago alderman, who wrote the
"irregularities" would qualify as "major cause
infractions" that county rules show would be punishable
by suspension or termination. Krystyniak, however, did not follow
up on the probe's findings.
'Nobody said anything'
Back, a 23-year county employee, said he was unaware his odometer
was ever the subject of a county investigation. "Nobody's
said anything to me about it," he said when reached last
week at his Streamwood home.
Back, a former union steward, admitted he made some mistakes
reporting his miles in 2004. He speculated that the reason he
was singled out for odometer checks was that he's long been
a thorn in the side of county management.
Back is a highway department engineering assistant, and his
job includes checking county roads for potholes and logging
lots of miles behind the wheel. The only time he recalled hearing
about the miles he was reporting came last year, when a supervisor
told him, "You're driving too much."
Since then, Back said, he's "cut way back. . . . But I'm
supposed to drive, so it's a real Catch-22."
Records show Back, whose base salary is around $63,000, charges
the county for mileage from the time he leaves his door and
continues as he makes maintenance stops and checks roads.
$350 overbilled
At the 2004 reimbursement rate of 37.5 cents per mile, the allegedly
fraudulent miles would have cost taxpayers about $350.
After the Sun-Times raised questions about Back's mileage reports,
Krystyniak's assistant, Brien Comerford, confirmed the findings
"warrant discipline" and confirmed that the documents
the newspaper obtained were legitimate.
However, Comerford said the county could find no similar discrepancies
throughout Back's sheets. Comerford said "the overwhelming
majority of Back's vouchers are accurate," and said what
happened in 2004 was "an isolated incident."
Nonetheless, county spokeswoman Chinta Strausberg said county
officials would re-evaluate Back's status based on the Sun-Times
inquiry. The county, she added, has instituted tougher checks
of travel expenses since the findings, requiring regular odometer
checks.
Still, records show that since 2002, the county highway department
has exceeded its travel budget by tens of thousands of dollars.
