Grains of Salt (v50): Official Accused of Working 2nd Job On Taxpayer Time

Last night there was breaking news (on Twitter, anyway) that the Onondaga County Comptroller was holding a press conference today on a subject involving a "high level County Official" but it was such a sensitive matter, no more details would be provided until today.  

Here's what we learned from Tim Knauss on Syracuse.com:

Onondaga County Comptroller Matthew Beadnell today will accuse the county's Democratic elections commissioner of occasionally working as a driver for Uber and Lyft during daytime business hours when he should be working at the Board of Elections. Beadnell, a Republican running for election in November, will discuss his allegations against  Elections Commissioner Dustin Czarny this morning at a news conference. 

Beadnell noted the overlap between the job we pay Czarny for and the job he gets paid for by Uber and Lyft were "infrequent but improper," noting

(Czarny) should not be earning outside income during business hours.

And he's right.

Government employees should not work a private job on taxpayer time. Even if, as Czarny said, he "doesn't punch a clock, and his job gives him the flexibility" to, say, work through his lunch or after normal business hours if needed to make up any time he might have spent on a ride-sharing job, and even if  he works more hours than called for in his regular schedule.

I believe that's the flexibility that the Board of Elections commissioners have had.

Beadnell says the Elections Commissioner job calls for at least 35 hours a week; Czarny is paid $98,753 per year, so the 94 hours of driving he's accused of doing during work hours in the past 18 months would have been worth around $5100 in county pay - and those hours would have been credited towards his pension.

Beadnell inexplicably briefed the Onondaga County GOP Chair, Tom Dadey, before making his announcement. I can't fathom any reason that would be necessary - it simply doesn't pass the sniff test.

He also notified Onondaga County DA-for-Life Bill Fitzpatrick; per a statement, we were told

This matter is now under criminal investigation and this office will have no further public comment until we have completed that investigation.

In  addition to Dadey and Fitz, Beadnell also shared his findings with the County Exec Ryan McMahon, County Attorney Robert Durr, the County Legislature, and NY AG Tish James.

In the investigation, which started in March after a tip was received, Beadnell's office reviewed hundreds of pages of documents, subpoenaed from Uber and Lyft, which they compared to the county's payroll system. While they found the 94 hours without any paid time off entered, there were other trips where holiday, vacation, sick or personal time were used for drive time.

This suggests to me, with no knowledge other than what's being alleged, that Czarny had at least some awareness about the optics, if not the ethics, of what he was doing.

Whether Beadnell appreciate the optics - or the ethics - of his sharing his news with the head of the GOP, we may never know.