CTA Vault Operations employees were paid more than $1M over last 5 years for work they didn’t do, according to investigation

CHICAGO — Over $1 million was paid to CTA Vault Operations employees over the last five years for work they didn’t do, according to a report just released by the State of Illinois Executive Ethics Commission.

The report also concludes that the employees’ managers were aware that these employees were not able to perform the remote work that they’ve been getting paid for since 2020.

The report releases the details of an investigation by the Office of Executive Inspector General for the Agencies of the Illinois Governor (OEIG), with names redacted, which concludes that from 2020 until the present, non-managerial Vault Operations employees have been paid for a least two days per week of remote work, even though none of their work duties can be performed remotely.

The CTA’s Vault Operations unit is responsible for packaging, shipping and processing bulk currency obtained from CTA fareboxes.

The OEIG reached its conclusions by various methods, including interviews with employees and accessing employees’ timekeeping and payroll records, which are all heavily detailed in a 60-page report.

Ultimately, the OEIG concludes that “based on these employees’ salaries and the OEIG’s analysis, the CTA paid over $1 million combined to these employees for days they conducted no CTA work over the past five years.”

Stemmed from complaint

According to the OEIG, the investigation stemmed from a complaint it received just over a year ago, on May 8, 2024, alleging that a CTA Vault Operations employee engaged in conduct that violated CTA policies, including: allowing employees to leave CTA’s secure treasury facility during work; allowing former employees into the secure facility; allowing a non-managerial employee to open and access the money safe; and having that same non-managerial employee sign the name of the employee cited in the complaint when money was picked up by security.

Based on information learned during this investigation, the OEIG says it also investigated whether the employee cited in the complaint was engaged in time abuse by not being at the Vault Operations facility during the workday, and also whether Vault Operations employees were being paid for days “worked” at home when none of their work functions were able to be performed remotely.

Started during pandemic

According to the OEIG’s report, beginning in March 2020, all CTA employees received an email that the CTA was working on a plan for how employees would conduct their work during the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns.

Soon after, the OEIG says, the CTA sent a Telework Policy and Agreement informing employees that telework was an option, as long as employees could “perform the core duties of their job from home.”

However, the OEIG says its investigation showed evidence that this Telework Policy was not followed by managers of the Vault Operations unit and that money handlers were not able to perform any of their job duties from home. Additionally, the OEIG report says nobody in the Vault Operations unit signed a Telework Agreement, and the Vault Operations employees continued to be paid whether they were at work or remained home.

“While it is understandable that there would be some disruption of work processes in the beginning of the pandemic, the fact that the CTA’s Telework Policy was never applied to the Vault Operations employees is not,” the OEIG’s report concludes.

Citing time records, the OEIG says money handlers came back to the office for just two days a week starting in July 2020 and then three days a week starting in May 2021, a policy that has continued until the present day.

Yet even after the CTA’s official return-to-office date, which was May 9, 2022, the OEIG report says Vault Operations employees continued to get paid for the two days a week they stayed at home and did no work for the CTA at all.

The OEIG’s report continues: “Multiple documents and interviews confirmed that the Vault Operations employees could not perform any of their duties remotely, even though the
Telework Policy required work duties to be able to be conducted from home — a generally reasonable requirement in return for a paycheck.

“For some reason, CTA managers did not feel compelled to make Vault Operations follow this policy, which resulted in the CTA paying over a million dollars, collectively, for these employees to stay home and not work. The OEIG believes this is a considerable and unnecessary waste of CTA funds.

“Giving away over a million dollars is significant waste, but it is equally concerning that
multiple managers knew this was taking place.”

The OEIG report does concede that exceptional measures or disruptions to standard operating procedures were certainly understandable at the start of the pandemic. But the large-scale time fraud alleged in the OEIG’s investigation continued well after that, right up until now, five years after the pandemic hit.

“Although paying employees may have been necessary in the very beginning of the pandemic, the CTA’s payment for no work continued week after week for five years. No justifiable reason for this continued payment was provided in any CTA documents or by any of the relevant CTA employees interviewed.

“… In addition to not taking appropriate action to mitigate this waste, it is also concerning that
all of the relevant managers either denied being aware of this situation or claimed it was somebody else who was responsible for the decision to keep paying for no work.”