OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL
MATTHEW L. CATE, INSPECTOR GENERAL

SPECIAL REVIEW INTO
MANAGEMENT OF UNION LEAVE TIME
BY THE
CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS AND REHABILITATION

JULY 2006

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1
INTRODUCTION ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9
BACKGROUND --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9
OBJECTIVES, SCOPE, AND METHODOLOGY -------------------------------------------------- 10
FINDING

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has mismanaged
millions of dollars in public resources and created an operational burden on
itself and the institutions by failing to accurately control and account for union
leave time.
RESPONSE OF THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
AND REHABILITATION --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report presents the results of a special review conducted by the Office of the
Inspector General of the management of union leave time by the California Department
of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The review was conducted under the authority of
California Penal Code section 6126, which assigns the Office of the Inspector General
responsibility for oversight of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
California Government Code sections 3512 through 3524 (the Ralph C. Dills Act) require
state agencies to allow a reasonable number of representatives of employee unions a
reasonable amount of time off without loss of compensation to meet and confer with state
representatives on matters within the scope of union representation. The amount and type
of union leave time is subject to negotiation between the state and its 21 recognized
bargaining units.
With a fiscal year 2005-06 budget of $7.7 billion, the Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation has 58,600 budgeted employee positions, approximately 49,000 of which
are classified as rank-and-file employees affiliated with 19 of the state’s bargaining units.
About 30,000 of the department’s employees are assigned to Bargaining Unit 6, which is
represented by the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.
Consistent with the Ralph C. Dills Act, contracts between the state and the department’s
19 bargaining units include provisions establishing various types of union leave time. In
general, these union leave arrangements fall into five main categories: release time bank;
official business-informal; official business-union; union-paid leave; and union activist
release time, descriptions of which appear on the following page. Some of the union
leave categories provide for the state to absorb the cost of the employee’s absence from
the job, while others call for the union to compensate the agency for the lost time, either
monetarily or through hours donated by union members.
From January 2000 through December 2005, Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation employees used a total of 318,317 hours of union leave time of all types,
equating to approximately $12 million in staff resources.1 The most significant of the
union leave categories for the department is the Bargaining Unit 6 release time bank for
rank-and-file members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which
accounted for 197,802 hours of union leave time between 2000 and 2005—62 percent of
the 318,317 hours of union leave time recorded by department employees during that
period.2 All of the hours in the Bargaining Unit 6 rank-and-file release time bank are
donated by the union’s members for the use of its members.

1

The $12 million figure is based on a rate of $37.66 per hour, which averages the salary and associated
employee benefits for a mid-step correctional officer for fiscal years 1999-00 and 2005-06.
2

Data obtained from the California Leave Accounting System maintained by the State Controller’s Office.
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UNION LEAVE CATEGORIES
Release time bank. Employees donate accrued vacation, annual leave, and other leave time to allow union members to be
released from their jobs to conduct union work without loss of compensation. The Bargaining Unit 6 contract provides for
a release time bank for rank-and-file members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. The California
Correctional Supervisors Organization and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association each have separate
release time banks for supervisors of Bargaining Unit 6 employees. Bargaining unit contracts with other state agencies
also include release time banks. Section 10.13 of the Bargaining Unit 6 contract expressly limits use of the rank-and-file
release time bank to 10,000 hours over the six-year life of the contract, but the department has not enforced the cap and its
validity is presently under dispute in the courts. Under the terms of the contract, the granting of release time is “subject to
the approval of the employee’s supervisor, operational needs, emergencies, or other standards limiting usage.” The
contract also provides that the department is not required to release an employee if that release would require filling the
employee’s position at time-and-a-half or if the release time bank does not have time credits available at the time of the
leave request. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is responsible for tracking overall donations and use of
time bank credits, and that data is entered into the California Leave Accounting System managed by the State Controller’s
Office. The State Controller’s Office tracks leave balances only of individual members and does not maintain a running
balance of release time bank donations and use, although the California Leave Accounting System is capable of reporting
cumulative totals by special query. According to the State Controller’s Office, the supervisors’ time banks accounted for
24,687 union leave hours from January 2000 through December 2005, 7.8 percent of the total hours used by department
employees during that period for all types of union leave, while the Bargaining Unit 6 rank-and-file release time bank
accounted for 197,802 hours — 62 percent of the total union leave hours.3
Official Business – Informal. Allows union members release time to provide individual union members with preparation
and representation during supervisory interviews, investigatory interviews, grievance conferences, Skelly hearings, and
State Personnel Board hearings. The state absorbs the cost and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation does not
track the time involved. All of the state’s 21 recognized bargaining units are allowed some form of informal leave for
union business.
Official Business – Union. Allows union members to participate in official union business, including labor-management
meetings, arbitration hearings, and state contract negotiations without loss of compensation. This provision applies to all
of the state’s unions pursuant to the Ralph C. Dills Act. The Bargaining Unit 6 contract with the California Correctional
Peace Officers Association allows three of the union’s executive vice presidents to be released full time for union
activities and for the union’s 43 chapter presidents to be released for union activities one day a week. The state’s contracts
with the CAUSE Statewide Law Enforcement Association and the Fire Protection Firefighters union also provide release
for union executives. The department tracks the time involved, but the state absorbs the cost of the lost time and therefore
incurs additional costs for any relief coverage needed. Accounted for 2.5 percent of union leave time used by department
employees from January 2000 through December 2005.
Union-Paid Leave. Allows union members to participate in union functions not approved by the Department of
Personnel Administration as official union business. The union bears the cost. The department must track the time and bill
the union for the employee’s salary and benefits. All but three of the state’s 21 bargaining unit contracts include this
provision. Accounted for 2 percent of union leave time used by department employees from January 2000 through
December 2005.
Union Activist Release Time. Allows rank-and-file members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association to
attend the union’s annual conference without loss of compensation. The department has been funded $368,000 annually to
pay for associated costs and must track to avoid exceeding that amount. No other union contracts contain this provision.
Accounted for 0.2 percent of union leave time used by department employees from January 2000 through December 2005.
3

Usage percentages have been corrected to account for errors identified in data submitted by the department to the State Controller’s
Office and therefore do not total 100 percent.
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The Office of the Inspector General found from the review that the Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation has failed to provide adequate oversight of union leave
time in accordance with state law, wasting potentially millions of dollars in public
resources and creating an operational burden on state correctional institutions. The
department’s failure in this regard violates the Financial Integrity and State Manager’s
Accountability Act of 1983, which requires state agencies to maintain systems of internal
accounting and administrative control to safeguard assets, maintain data accurately and
reliably, and to minimize fraud, errors, abuse, and waste of government funds.
While the Office of the Inspector General was able to estimate the fiscal impact of
specific union leave accounting errors, the department’s failure to maintain accurate and
reliable records on union leave precluded the Office of the Inspector General from
quantifying the total fiscal impact of the department’s mismanagement of union leave or
identifying monies that may be owed to the state as a result.
Specifically, the review determined the following:
•

The department did not establish sound accounting for the release time bank.
The department did not plan for implementation of the rank-and-file release time
bank and failed to develop the checks and balances necessary to accurately track
time donated and used, leaving it unable to accurately reconcile its internal release
time bank records. Failure to do so violates provisions of the Financial Integrity
and State Manager’s Accountability Act of 1983. The department also has only
recently instituted standardized coding procedures to ensure that release time bank
donations and usage are accurately recorded and has not adequately trained staff
responsible for entering the data. As a result, the records are laden with errors and
there are vast discrepancies between the department’s release time bank records
and those of the State Controller’s Office.

•

Errors make it impossible to tell whether the release time bank is overdrawn.
Because of errors in the department’s coding of union release time and because
the department has not effectively tracked donations and use, it is not possible to
tell for certain whether the release time bank is overdrawn. According to State
Controller’s Office figures, rank-and-file release time bank usage for the period
January 2000 through December 2005 exceeded time donations by 30,373 hours
— the equivalent of $1.1 million in staff resources. It is possible, however, that
the excessive use of time donations may have resulted from the department
erroneously charging other types of union leave time to the release time bank and
that no deficit actually exists.

•

The department cannot reconcile its time bank records with those of the union.
Since at least 1992, the Bargaining Unit 6 union contract has required the
department to reconcile its release time bank records with the union’s records as
often as the department and the union agree is necessary, although no more often
than once a quarter. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association

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reports that the department and the union performed quarterly reconciliations
under the previous administration, and the department reports that its former labor
chief met with the union at least once a year to reconcile the release time bank
records. Yet, the department’s Office of Labor Relations told the Office of the
Inspector General during this review that the department began monthly
reconciliations to track donations and use only with the period beginning July
2005 and did not continuously track donations and use before that time.
Moreover, differences in the way the department and the union record and track
donations and usage make reconciliation impossible. According to the Office of
Labor Relations, the department tracks the time after it has been used, while the
California Correctional Peace Officers Associations tracks usage at the time it is
requested. The union also complains that the department delays posting donations
to the release time bank, sometimes for months, but charges for release time bank
usage immediately. In any case, the department cannot successfully reconcile its
records with those of the union until it can achieve an accurate internal
reconciliation.
•

•

The department did not enforce the release time bank cap. Current language in
section 10.13 of the Bargaining Unit 6 contract expressly limits the use of the
rank-and-file release time bank to 10,000 hours over the six-year life of the
contract. Yet, the department did not raise the issue of the cap until 2005, four
years into the contract and after Bargaining Unit 6 members had used 122,367
hours from the release time bank. The California Correctional Peace Officers
Association maintains, and the Department of Personnel Administration’s chief
negotiator testified regarding the 2001 contract, that the intention of the parties
during negotiations was to eliminate the cap and that it remained in the contract
by error. An arbitrator ruled, therefore, that the presence of the 10,000-hour cap
in the contract was due to a transcription error. The arbitrator’s decision was
subsequently vacated by the court, and the California Correctional Peace
Officers Association in a separate action is seeking removal of the cap. Because
of the pending litigation, the department continues to grant time from the release
time bank without regard to the cap.
The department has failed to manage the supervisors’ release time banks. The
Office of the Inspector General found that until recently the Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation mistakenly believed that the Department of
Personnel Administration was responsible for monitoring the release time banks
established for supervisors affiliated with the California Correctional Peace
Officers Association or the California Correctional Supervisors Organization. As
a result, the department did not attempt to track time donations and usage to the
supervisors’ release time bank or to reconcile the release time bank records. The
Department of Personnel Administration informed the department this year,
however, that it does not monitor the release time bank and lacks the ability to do
so because it does not have the necessary personnel time records. Accordingly,
the department’s Office of Labor Relations has now begun to track the

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supervisors’ release time bank donations and usage and reported a positive leave
balance of 3,602 hours for the period July 2005 through January 2006. The Office
of the Inspector General found that the California Leave Accounting System
shows 29,389 hours in donations and 24,687 hours of usage in the supervisors’
release time banks for the period January 2000 through December 2005, resulting
in a positive balance of 4,702 hours, if the figures are accurate.
•

The department has allowed release time without verifying authorization. The
department has allowed a significant number of employees to be released
indefinitely from job assignments to conduct union functions without supporting
documentation to verify that the time was authorized. In an October 28, 2004
memorandum, the department’s Financial Services Division identified 19
employees who had been released full-time or part-time for union activities and
who had used the largest amount of union leave time. Although three of the
employees were entitled to full-time release under the union contract, evidence of
release authorization for some of the other employees was lacking. For one
employee, the department was unable to provide documentation either of a
request for release from the union or an authorization for release from the state.
For another employee, the department provided evidence of release authorization
for only 712 hours for official business and 1,576 hours from the union for use of
release time bank credits, leaving 2,738 hours with no evidence of release
authorization.

•

The department has not consistently charged time to the release time bank. In
checking the personnel records of nine of the 19 employees described above, the
Office of the Inspector General found that 14,707 hours reported as release time
bank hours during the period reviewed were not shown as charged to the release
time bank in the State Controller’s Office records. The value of the time lost in
that instance is estimated at $554,000.

•

In some instances, the department has failed to account for time at all. In the
sample of the nine employees described above, the Office of the Inspector
General found that 10,970 hours — the equivalent of approximately $413,000 —
were not charged to either work time or any other type of leave.

•

The department has not controlled the individual use of union release time. The
department has not controlled the individual use of union release time despite
language in the Bargaining Unit 6 contract providing for limits on some types of
union release time where necessary to prevent hardship to the department. In one
instance, for example, the department allowed an employee to continue on fulltime release for union activities for 6½ years even though the institution to which
he has been assigned reported that it had raised objections about the situation
every year since 1999. Although the employee was on the institution’s payroll the
entire time, he had never worked at the institution.

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•

The department has not required timesheets for employees on union leave.
According to the department’s Office of Labor Relations, the union interpreted a
side letter to the Bargaining Unit 6 agreement to mean that rank-and-file
employees on union leave were not required to submit monthly timesheets. The
department disagreed, and the issue is still under dispute. The Office of the
Inspector General found that as a result, some employees on union leave did not
submit timesheets and others submitted timesheets several months late and
without a supervisor’s signature to verify the accuracy of the information. This
practice allows employees on union leave to report they worked on holidays
without verification that they actually did so and to not report the use of sick
leave, vacation time, or annual leave. Employees are thereby able to collect
holiday pay and credit in addition to regular pay and to accrue large leave
balances from unused vacation and sick time, which creates a fiscal liability for
the state when the employees separate from state service.
For example, two of the nine employees discussed earlier submitted no timesheets
for any of the 29 months reviewed, while the employee described above, who was
on union leave for 6 ½ years, submitted some timesheets months late and without
a supervisor’s signature. That employee reported no sick leave or vacation time
for the entire 6 ½ year period and claimed to have worked every holiday since
April 1999 even though the union request for the release time specifically
excluded holidays. As a result, he had received his regular pay, eight hours of
holiday credit, and four hours of holiday pay for all of those holidays, which, in
2005 alone, according to the hiring authority, resulted in compensation totaling
$8,000 and 104 hours of holiday credit. He had also accumulated a leave balance
for unused vacation time of 2,376 hours by November 2005, which if unchanged,
would result in a lump sum payment at retirement of $116,000. Without an
effective time-accounting system, it is not possible to verify that the employee
validly claimed that time and was entitled to the resulting compensation.

•

The department has failed to consistently bill for reimbursable union leave time.
The Office of the Inspector General found instances in which the department may
have failed to bill the union to obtain reimbursement for union-paid leave,
although because of coding errors in the department’s records it is not possible to
determine for certain whether all of the time in question was billable. In
attempting to verify payments for a sample of 1,620 hours recorded as union-paid
leave, the Office of the Inspector General found that the department had billed for
only 354 hours, 21.9 percent of the 1,620 hours in question — a loss of up to
$48,000. Staff from one of the department’s eight regional accounting offices told
the Office of the Inspector General in the course of the review that the office had
never billed the California Correctional Peace Officers Association for union-paid
leave.

•

The department failed to request funding to cover leave for union officials. The
department has not requested funding to cover union leave time required in the

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Bargaining Unit 6 contract to allow three executive vice presidents of the
California Correctional Peace Officers Association to be released full-time from
their job assignments and for the union’s 43 chapter presidents to be released one
day a week for union purposes.4 Because the activities constitute official union
business, either the positions remain unfilled or the cost of providing relief
coverage — the value of which in this instance totals more than $900,000 — is an
unfunded obligation borne by the department.
•

The department has exceeded its funding for the union’s annual conference.
The department has exceeded the $368,000 provided in its yearly budget to cover
the cost of releasing employee delegates to attend the California Correctional
Peace Officers Association annual conference. According to records obtained
from the department’s Office of Labor Relations, the costs exceeded the budgeted
amount for the annual conferences from 2002 through 2005 by more than
$400,000. The Office of the Inspector General found evidence, moreover, that the
$400,000 figure may be understated because annual conference release time may
have been incorrectly coded by the department as deductible from the rank-andfile release time bank.

The Office of the Inspector General has issued the following nine recommendations to
correct these and other deficiencies identified in the review.
RECOMMENDATIONS
In order for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to
correct the deficiencies in its management of union leave time, the Office of
the Inspector General recommends that the department take the following
actions:
•

Reconcile union leave time internally on a monthly basis. Include in the
reconciliation the authorization of release time for union business and
any other documentation that would capture the time authorized, used,
and billed.

•

In conjunction with the California Correctional Peace Officers
Association, develop uniform policies and procedures that facilitate
reconciling the release time bank balance each quarter with the union’s
records.

•

Standardize the policies and procedures used for approving union leave
time and processing transactions and distribute those policies and
procedures throughout the department.

4

According to the Office of Labor Relations, during the negotiations over this provision, the Department of
Personnel Administration had identified the necessary funds to cover leave for union officials.
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•

Establish policies and procedures for accurately recording union leave
time throughout the department. Provide training throughout the
department on the use of timekeeping codes.

•

Conduct periodic audits to ensure that time is recorded accurately and
union leave time is reconciled monthly.

•

To minimize fiscal and operational impacts, negotiate and enforce a
reasonable annual cap on release time bank usage with the California
Correctional Peace Officers Association.

•

Enforce the requirement that all employees, unless specifically exempted
under labor contracts, submit monthly attendance sheets to account for
any absences and time worked. In the alternative, obviate the need for
monthly time reporting by negotiating a new leave system wherein state
employees working full time on union business neither accrue nor use
sick leave and vacation time, with the understanding that the state may
need to compensate the employees for the loss of those benefits. As a third
alternative, work with the unions to develop another solution that
provides the necessary accountability.

•

Collect full reimbursement, including benefits where applicable, when
union employees are released from work to perform union activities
unless the release is specifically addressed in labor contracts or requested
by the state.

•

Request funding from the Legislature for union issues addressed in labor
contracts, such as compensation for Bargaining Unit 6 executive vicepresidents and chapter presidents.

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INTRODUCTION

T

his report presents the results of a special review conducted by the Office of the
Inspector General into the management of union leave time for employees of the
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The review was
conducted under the authority of California Penal Code section 6126, which assigns the
Office of the Inspector General responsibility for oversight of the Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation.
BACKGROUND
California Government Code sections 3512 through 3524 (the Ralph C. Dills Act)
provide a means of resolving disputes concerning wages, hours, and other conditions of
employment between the state and public employee unions. Section 3518.5 of the
California Government Code requires a reasonable number of employee representatives
to be allowed a reasonable amount of time off without loss of compensation to formally
meet and confer with representatives of the state on matters within the scope of
representation. The amount and type of release time allowed is subject to negotiation with
individual public employee unions. Employees may also use their own leave credits or
take leaves of absence for union activities.
The Public Employment Relations Board, which oversees administration of the Ralph C.
Dills Act, has designated 21 bargaining units for represented state employees. Issues
relating to union members’ wages, hours, and terms and conditions of employment are
negotiated between the Department of Personnel Administration and union
representatives for each bargaining unit. The negotiations result in a memorandum of
understanding (contract), which is presented to the Legislature for approval. After the
contract is approved, the members of the public employee union and the state employer
must abide by the provisions specified in the contract.
With a fiscal year 2005-06 budget of $7.7 billion, the Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation has 58,600 budgeted employee positions encompassing numerous trades
and professions. Approximately 49,000 of the positions are classified as rank-and-file and
are affiliated with 19 of the state’s 21 recognized bargaining units. About 30,000 of the
department’s employees are assigned to Bargaining Unit 6, which is exclusively
represented by the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.
Consistent with the Ralph C. Dills Act, the contracts with the 19 bargaining units
representing Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation employees define
arrangements for union leave time. These arrangements fall generally into five main
categories or types: release time bank; official business-informal; official business-union;
union-paid leave; and union activist release time. Under some of the arrangements, the
department absorbs the cost of the employee’s absence from the job; in others, the union
compensates the department for the lost time either monetarily or in time returned. From
January 2000 through December 2005, the department’s employees used 318,317 hours
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of union leave time in all categories — equating to approximately $12 million in staff
resources.5
By far the most significant of the union leave categories for the Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation is the Bargaining Unit 6 release time bank, which applies
to rank-and-file members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and
which has accounted for 62 percent of the hours used by department employees for union
activities over the past six years.
OBJECTIVES, SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY
The purpose of this special review was to assess whether the Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation adequately manages the union leave time used by its employees and
whether the department has been adequately reimbursed for the time involved. The
review concentrated primarily on use of the release time bank for rank-and-file members
negotiated by the department with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association
because that release time bank accounts for most of the union leave time affecting the
department, but the review also examined the department’s controls over other types of
union leave used by the department’s other bargaining units. To this end, the Office of
the Inspector General examined the department’s management of and controls over the
rank-and-file release time bank and other types of union leave, the department’s
management of its fiscal resources, and its management of other administrative functions.
The review did not include an examination of the Department of Personnel
Administration’s role, if any, in the administration of union leave. The review concerned
only the actions of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The
Office of the Inspector General did not audit any of the bargaining units or their records.
During the course of the special review, the Office of the Inspector General performed
the following procedures:
•

Conducted site visits at one juvenile and two adult institutions to gain an
understanding of the procedures practiced at institutions.

•

Conducted site visits at department headquarters for both juvenile and adult programs
to gain an understanding of procedures and controls used to manage union leave time.

•

Interviewed various headquarters and institution staff in the areas of labor relations,
personnel, financial services, and institution services.

•

Interviewed staff of other agencies, including the State Controller’s Office, to gain an
understanding of the capabilities available in existing systems used to manage and
report on employee pay and leave data.

5

The $12 million figure is based on a rate of $37.66 per hour, which averages the salary and associated
employee benefits for a mid-step correctional officer for fiscal years 1999-00 and 2005-06.

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•

Met with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association leadership to discuss
issues related to union leave.

•

Reviewed budgetary documents, accounting reports, timekeeping reports, leave
reports, payroll information, union agreements, arbitration reports, legal decisions, a
June 2005 report of an investigation by the Bureau of State Audits on union leave
issues, and other pertinent documents.

•

Calculated the monetary equivalent of staff hours for various transactions. Depending
on the circumstances, the calculations were based on the average of a mid-level
correctional officer’s salary and benefits, a current year mid-level correctional
officer’s salary and benefits, or the actual salary of a particular employee.

•

Reviewed internal automated systems related to timekeeping and external systems
related to payroll and leave information as well as the reporting capabilities of the
systems.

•

Analyzed the information gathered, reconciled selected transactions, and conducted
testing as appropriate to formulate conclusions.

While the Office of the Inspector General was able to estimate the fiscal impact of
specific union leave accounting errors, the department’s failure to maintain accurate and
reliable records on union leave precluded the Office of the Inspector General from
quantifying the total fiscal impact of the department’s mismanagement of union leave or
to identify monies that may be owed to the state as a result.
Throughout the special review, the Office of the Inspector General received excellent
cooperation and assistance from the department and its staff and other stakeholders.

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FINDING
The Office of the Inspector General found that the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation has mismanaged millions of dollars in public
resources and created an operational burden on itself and the institutions by failing
to accurately control and account for union leave time.
According to State Controller’s Office records, Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation employees used 318,317 hours of union leave time from 2000 through
2005, the equivalent of approximately $12 million in staff resources. Yet, the department
has done a poor job of overseeing union leave time use — failing to set up a sound and
accurate accounting system for the rank-and-file release time bank; failing to track and
control the time used; failing to collect reimbursements owed to the state; failing to
enforce or clarify the 10,000-hour cap on release time bank usage; and failing to request
funding for state-paid union leave time required under the Bargaining Unit 6 contract. It
also appears that the department may have allowed the release time bank to be overdrawn
by the equivalent of approximately $1.1 million in staff resources, but coding errors in
the department’s records make it impossible to know for certain, and, in fact, the deficit
may not exist. The department also has not controlled the use of union release time to
prevent hardship to the department despite language in the bargaining unit contracts
allowing it to do so. The Office of the Inspector General found numerous other problems
in the department’s management of union leave time, most of them attributable to the
failure on the part of the department to make sound and timely decisions concerning
union leave.
The failure to adequately manage union leave time has imposed direct costs on the
department, adding to the department’s overall fiscal problems and wasting potentially
millions of dollars in state resources, although the precise amount involved is not
quantifiable because of the department’s inadequate record keeping. The failure to
manage and control union leave time has also created an operational burden on
institutions and on the department as a whole.
State law requires state agencies to maintain accounting and administrative controls.
The Financial Integrity and State Manager’s Accountability Act of 1983, codified in
California Government Code sections 13400 through 13407, requires that state agencies
establish and maintain systems of internal accounting and administrative control to
safeguard assets, maintain data accurately and reliably, promote operational efficiency,
and encourage adherence to prescribed managerial policies. Section 13401 specifically
requires that the systems of internal accounting and administrative control be evaluated
on an ongoing basis and that weaknesses be corrected promptly when they are detected.
Section 13401 further provides that “all levels of management of the state agencies must
be involved in assessing and strengthening the systems of internal accounting and
administrative control to minimize fraud, errors, abuse, and waste of government funds.”

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Despite those requirements, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has failed
to establish the internal accounting and administrative controls necessary to accurately
and effectively manage the union leave of its employees. The Office of the Inspector
General found that the department has repeatedly delayed addressing issues related to
union leave when such issues were brought to its attention by legislators, a federal court
monitor, the Bureau of State Audits, and others. When it has acted, the department has
made numerous poor decisions and errors in planning for and managing union leave time.
The Office of the Inspector General found the following:
•

The department did not establish an accounting system for the release time
bank. According to State Controller’s Office records, the department’s employees
used 197,802 hours from the Bargaining Unit 6 rank-and-file release time bank
from January 2000 through December 2005, accounting for 62 percent of all types
of union release time used by department employees during that period. The
approximate value of that time amounts to $7.4 million. Yet, when the release
time bank was established in the Bargaining Unit 6 contract, the department did
not plan for its implementation and failed to establish a sound accounting system
for accurately tracking donations and usage, including developing the checks and
balances necessary to enable it to reconcile its internal release time bank records.
Failure to do so violates provisions of the Financial Integrity and State Manager’s
Accountability Act of 1983.

•

The department delayed issuing coding procedures needed to ensure accuracy.
The department delayed issuing standardized coding procedures to ensure that
union leave time of all types is recorded accurately and consistently, finally
issuing the procedures in February 2006. Training for staff on coding procedures
has also been lacking. The absence of policies and procedures and the lack of
training have caused the coding to be inconsistent and error-laden. For example:
¾ Different codes are used for juvenile and adult institutions. Juvenile
facilities and adult institutions use different codes to designate leave time. The
juvenile facilities reviewed by the Office of the Inspector General use two
codes in their internal time-keeping systems and cannot further differentiate
union leave types, while adult institutions use six codes.
¾ Leave time for annual union conferences was coded incorrectly. The Office
of the Inspector General found that leave time for annual union conferences
was not coded correctly and was therefore under-reported in the State
Controller’s Office California Leave Accounting System. One institution used
a variety of codes to record union annual conference time, none of them
correct. And while the California Leave Accounting System showed only 587
hours recorded as union conference time for the 14 months from August 2004
through September 2005, which included two annual conferences, requests
from the union for annual conference release time for 11 institutions for the

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OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL

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STATE OF CALIFORNIA

August 2005 conference alone totaled 2,252 hours, an average of 205 hours
per site. Applying this average to the department’s 41 institutions, the total
would come to 16,800 hours for the two conferences, far more than the 587
hours reported in the system. The Office of the Inspector General also found
evidence that annual conference leave time may have been incorrectly coded
as deductible from the rank-and-file release time bank.
¾ Union leave usage codes differ by facility. The Office of the Inspector
General found that different facilities used different codes for the same type of
union leave. Some institutions used the correct code for union conference
time, while others used incorrect codes.
¾ Personnel staff and supervisors used incorrect codes. The Office of the
Inspector General found instances in which supervisors used the wrong code
on daily timesheets to record an employee’s absence for union leave, but
because the code was valid for other types of union leave, the system accepted
it. In other instances, personnel staff failed to enter correct codes from
attendance sheets. In one case, for example, a personnel timekeeper entered
into the system the code “DD,” designating “detached duty,” even though
other documentation showed that the code “UTB,” designating the release
time bank, should have been used.
•

Errors make it impossible to tell whether the release time bank is overdrawn.
Because of errors in the department’s coding of union release time and because
the department has not effectively tracked donations and use, it is not possible to
tell for certain whether the rank-and-file release time bank is overdrawn.
According to the State Controller’s Office records, rank-and-file members of the
California Correctional Peace Officers Association donated 167,429 hours to the
release time bank between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2005, but used
197,802 hours, resulting in a negative balance for that period of 30,373 hours. If
accurate, that negative balance is the equivalent of $1.1 million in staff
resources. A review of more recent figures revealed a similar deficit. Again,
according to State Controller’s Office records, from August 2004 through
February 2006, hours used from the release time bank appear to have exceeded
donations by 19,105 hours, the equivalent of $719,000 in staff resources. But the
Office of the Inspector General found numerous coding errors in the
department’s records that may have caused other types of union leave time to be
erroneously charged to the release time bank. During the review, for example,
the Office of the Inspector General found that 80,888 hours of union leave time
used by non-Bargaining Unit 6 employees had been erroneously charged to
release time banks. Although the Office of the Inspector General corrected for
those hours in calculating the 30,373-hour release time bank deficit, that error
and other coding errors identified during the review open the possibility that the
deficit may not exist or may be offset by other errors.

BUREAU OF AUDITS AND INVESTIGATIONS
OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL

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STATE OF CALIFORNIA

•

The department cannot reconcile its time bank records with those of the union.
Since at least 1992, Section 10.13 of the contract between the state and the
California Correctional Peace Officers Association has required the release time
bank of the department and the union to be reconciled — compared, verified,
adjusted, and corrected — as often as the parties agree is necessary, although not
more than once per quarter. The process is meant to ensure that donations and
usage are accurately recorded and are consistent within the two systems. The
California Correctional Peace Officers Association reports that the department
and the union performed quarterly reconciliations under the previous
administration, and the department reports that its former labor chief met with
the union at least once a year for that purpose. Yet, the department’s Office of
Labor Relations told the Office of the Inspector General during this review that
the department began monthly reconciliations to track donations and use only
with the period beginning July 2005 and did not continuously track donations
and use before that time. Moreover, differences in the way the department and
the union record and track donations and usage make reconciliation impossible.
The department compares authorization slips completed by employees when they
donate time to the employee’s available leave balance and then compares the
release time bank requests from the union to the usage data posted in the
California Leave Accounting System at the State Controller’s Office. According
to the Office of Labor Relations, the union instead records the leave usage at the
time it requests the leave. In effect, the department tracks usage after it has been
used, while the union tracks usage before it has been used. The union has also
complained that the department delays posting donations to the release time
bank, sometimes for months, but charges for release time bank usage
immediately. Until those differences are resolved, it will not be possible to
reconcile the leave balances between the two entities. In any case, the department
cannot successfully reconcile its records with those of the union until it can
achieve an accurate internal reconciliation.

•

The department’s records conflict with those of the State Controller’s Office.
Widespread errors in the department’s union leave records and in its coding of
release time bank donations and usage not only make the department’s data
unreliable, but result in vast discrepancies between the department’s release time
bank records and those of the State Controller’s Office. When the department
made its first attempt to reconcile the release time bank records, it was obliged to
begin with a July 2005 balance provided by the California Correctional Peace
Officers Association — 17,254 hours — because it lacked data of its own. As it
attempted the reconciliation, the department found the task to be nearly
impossible because of errors in the way usage of union release time had been
recorded. For example, in January 2006, beginning with the union’s reported
balance of 17,254 hours for rank-and-file employees, adding time donations of
8,324 hours, and deducting usage of 17,346 hours, the department reported a
positive release time bank balance of 8,232 hours. Yet, the State Controller’s
Office data for the same period reported release time bank usage to be more than

BUREAU OF AUDITS AND INVESTIGATIONS
OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL

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STATE OF CALIFORNIA

26,500 hours — 53 percent higher than the department’s usage total. As a result,
again beginning with the union’s reported balance of 17,254 and using the State
Controller’s Office data, the release time bank would reflect a negative balance
of 1,087 hours as of January 2006, instead of the positive balance of 8,232 hours
calculated by the department.
•

The department did not enforce the release time bank cap. Current language in
section 10.13 of the Bargaining Unit 6 contract expressly limits the use of the
rank-and-file release time bank to 10,000 hours over the six-year life of the
contract. Yet, the department did not raise the issue of the cap until 2005, four
years into the contract and after Bargaining Unit 6 members had used 122,367
hours from the release time bank. The California Correctional Peace Officers
Association maintains, and the Department of Personnel Administration’s chief
negotiator testified regarding the 2001 contract, that the intention of the parties
during negotiations was to eliminate the cap and that it remained in the contract
by error. An arbitrator ruled, therefore, that the presence of the 10,000-hour cap
in the contract was due to a transcription error. The arbitrator’s decision was
subsequently vacated by the court, and the California Correctional Peace
Officers Association in a separate action is seeking removal of the cap. Because
of the pending litigation, the department continues to grant time from the release
time bank without regard to the cap.

•

The department has failed to manage the supervisors’ release time banks. The
Office of the Inspector General found that until recently the Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation mistakenly believed that the Department of
Personnel Administration was responsible for monitoring the release time banks
established for supervisors affiliated with the California Correctional Peace
Officers Association or the California Correctional Supervisors Organization. As
a result, the department did not attempt to track time donations and usage to the
supervisors’ release time bank or to reconcile the release time bank records. The
Department of Personnel Administration informed the department this year,
however, that it does not monitor the release time bank and lacks the ability to do
so because it does not have the necessary personnel time records. Accordingly,
the department’s Office of Labor Relations has now begun to track the
supervisors’ release time bank donations and usage and reported a positive leave
balance of 3,602 hours for the period July 2005 through January 2006. The
Office of the Inspector General found that the California Leave Accounting
System shows 29,389 hours in donations and 24,687 hours of usage in the
supervisors’ release time banks for the period January 2000 through December
2005, resulting in a positive balance of 4,702 hours, if the figures are accurate.

•

The department has allowed release time without verifying authorization. The
department has allowed a significant number of employees to be released
indefinitely from job assignments to conduct union functions without supporting
documentation to verify that the time was authorized. In an October 28, 2004

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OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL

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STATE OF CALIFORNIA

memorandum, the Financial Services Division of the Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation called attention to the fact that 19 department employees,
including two executive vice presidents of the California Correctional Peace
Officers Association and one former executive vice president, had been granted
full-time or part-time release to conduct union business. Although the union
executive vice presidents were entitled to full-time release under the union
contract, evidence of release authorization for some of the other employees was
lacking. For one employee, the department was unable to provide documentation
either of a request for release from the union or an authorization for release from
the state. For another employee, the department provided evidence of release for
only 712 hours for official business and 1,576 hours from the union for use of
release time bank credits. The department had no documents showing
authorization for the release of the employee’s remaining 2,738 hours and it did
not record any of the employee’s time because the employee submitted no
timesheets.
•

The department has failed to properly account for some union leave time. In
some instances, the department has simply failed to account for union release
time at all. In a sample of nine of the 19 employees described above, the Office
of the Inspector General found that 10,970 hours — the equivalent of
approximately $413,000 — were not charged to either work time or any other
type of leave. Over the 29-month period reviewed from May 2003 through
September 2005, regular work time would have totaled approximately 5,026
hours per employee, or a total of 45,234 hours for all nine employees. Yet only
34,264 hours (76 percent) of the 45,234 hours were accounted for. The
department recorded 4,139 hours (9 percent) as time worked on the employees’
state jobs; 28,867 hours of release time were authorized for union activities; and
1,258 hours were used for holidays, sick leave, or vacation, leaving 10,970 hours
of release time unaccounted for.

•

The department has not consistently charged hours to the release time bank. In
checking the personnel records of the nine employees described above for the
period May 2003 through September 2005, the Office of the Inspector General
found that 14,707 hours that should have been reported in the records as release
time bank hours were not recorded in the California Leave Accounting System.
The timesheets of one of the employees alone reported 4,528 hours as used from
the release time bank, but none of that time was recorded in the State
Controller’s Office records. The value of the 14,707 hours not properly charged
to the release time bank in this instance totaled $554,000.

•

The department has not controlled individual use of union leave time. The
Office of the Inspector General found that the department continues to grant
union leave time without regard to provisions in the Bargaining Unit 6 contract
providing for limits where necessary. In one such example, the department
allowed an employee to continue on full-time release for union activities for 6 ½

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OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL

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STATE OF CALIFORNIA

years even though the institution to which he was assigned reported it had raised
objections about the situation at every fiscal review since April 1999. In that
case, the employee was added to the payroll of an adult institution on a 90-day
temporary assignment, but was immediately released by the department to work
full-time on union business. The employee was still on the institution’s payroll 6
½ years later in March 2006 even though he had never worked at the institution.
•

The department has not required timesheets for employees on union leave.
According to the department’s Office of Labor Relations, the union interpreted a
side letter to the Bargaining Unit 6 agreement to mean that rank-and-file
employees on union leave were not required to submit monthly timesheets. The
department disagreed, and the issue is still under dispute. The Office of the
Inspector General found that as a result, some employees on union leave did not
submit timesheets and others submitted timesheets several months late and
without a supervisor’s signature to verify the accuracy of the information. This
practice allows employees on union leave to report they worked on holidays
without verification that they actually did so and to not report the use of sick
leave, vacation time, or annual leave. Employees are thereby able to collect
holiday pay and credit in addition to regular pay and to accrue large leave
balances from unused vacation and sick time, which creates a fiscal liability for
the state when the employees separate from state service.
For example, two of the nine employees discussed earlier submitted no timesheets
for any of the 29 months reviewed, while the employee described above, who was
on union leave for 6 ½ years, submitted some timesheets months late and without
a supervisor’s signature. That employee reported no sick leave or vacation time
for the entire 6 ½ year period and claimed to have worked every holiday since
April 1999 even though the union request for the release time specifically
excluded holidays. As a result, he had received his regular pay, eight hours of
holiday credit, and four hours of holiday pay for all of those holidays, which, in
2005 alone, according to the hiring authority, resulted in compensation totaling
$8,000 and 104 hours of holiday credit. He had also accumulated a leave balance
for unused vacation time of 2,376 hours by November 2005, which if unchanged,
would result in a lump sum payment at retirement of $116,000. Without an
effective time-accounting system, it is not possible to verify that the employee
validly claimed that time and was entitled to the resulting compensation.

•

The department appears to have failed to bill for reimbursable union leave
time. The Office of the Inspector General found instances in which the
department may have failed to bill the union to obtain reimbursement for unionpaid leave, although, again, because of coding errors in the department’s records
it is not possible to determine for certain whether all of the time in question was
billable. In one example, the Office of the Inspector General attempted to verify
payments for a sample of 1,620 hours recorded in the California Leave
Accounting System as union-paid leave and found that the regional accounting

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OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL

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STATE OF CALIFORNIA

offices had billed for only 354 hours, 21.9 percent of the hours in question.
Although the Office of the Inspector General found some coding errors, the
remaining 1,266 hours, for which the department did not bill, amounts to almost
$48,000. Staff from one regional accounting office told the Office of the
Inspector General in the course of the review that the office had never billed the
California Correctional Peace Officers Association for union-paid leave. When
the Office of the Inspector General pointed out that error, the regional accounting
office billed and received from the union almost $23,000, but miscalculated the
amount owed by failing to include employee benefits. The actual amount owed
totaled more than $25,000.
•

The department failed to request funding to cover leave for union officials.
The Bargaining Unit 6 contract provides for three executive vice presidents of
the California Correctional Peace Officers Association to be released full time
from their job assignments to conduct union business—a provision similar to
those found in other agreements with state safety and fire protection labor
organizations. In addition, effective June 30, 2004, the 43 chapter presidents of
the California Correctional Peace Officers Association are allowed one day a
week off for union purposes. Because the activities constitute official union
business, either the positions remain unfilled or the cost of providing relief
coverage — the value of which in this instance totals more than $900,000 — is
an unfunded obligation borne by the department because it failed to request the
necessary funds.6

•

The department has exceeded its funding for the union’s annual conference.
Since fiscal year 2003-04, the department has been funded with $368,000
annually to cover the cost of releasing the California Correctional Peace Officer
Association’s delegates to attend the union’s annual conference. Records from
the department’s Office of Labor Relations, however, show that for the 2002
through 2005 conferences, the costs have exceeded the budgeted amount by
more than $400,000. The Office of the Inspector General found evidence,
moreover, that the $400,000 figure may be understated because annual
conference release time may have been incorrectly coded by the department as
deductible from the rank-and-file release time bank.

6

According to the Office of Labor Relations, during the negotiations over this provision, the Department of
Personnel Administration had identified the necessary funds to cover leave for union officials.
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OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL

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STATE OF CALIFORNIA

RECOMMENDATIONS
To correct the deficiencies in the management of union leave time, the Office
of the Inspector General recommends that the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation take the following actions:
•

Reconcile union leave time internally on a monthly basis. Include in the
reconciliation the authorization of release time for union business and
any other documentation that would capture the time authorized, used,
and billed.

•

In conjunction with the California Correctional Peace Officers
Association, develop uniform policies and procedures that facilitate
reconciling the release time bank balance each quarter with the union’s
records.

•

Standardize the policies and procedures used for approving union leave
time and processing transactions, and distribute those policies and
procedures throughout the department.

•

Establish policies and procedures for accurately recording union leave
time throughout the department. Provide training throughout the
department on the use of timekeeping codes.

•

Conduct periodic audits to ensure that time is recorded accurately and
union leave time is reconciled monthly.

•

To minimize fiscal and operational impacts, negotiate and enforce a
reasonable annual cap on release time bank usage with the California
Correctional Peace Officers Association.

•

Enforce the requirement that all employees, unless specifically exempted
under labor contracts, submit monthly attendance sheets to account for
any absences and time worked. In the alternative, obviate the need for
monthly time reporting by negotiating a new leave system wherein state
employees working full time on union business neither accrue nor use
sick leave and vacation time, with the understanding that the state may
need to compensate the employees for the loss of those benefits. As a third
alternative, work with the unions to develop another solution that
provides the necessary accountability.

•

Collect full reimbursement, including benefits where applicable, when
union employees are released from work to perform union activities

BUREAU OF AUDITS AND INVESTIGATIONS
OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL

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STATE OF CALIFORNIA

unless the release is specifically addressed in labor contracts or requested
by the state.
•

Request funding from the Legislature for union issues addressed in labor
contracts, such as compensation for Bargaining Unit 6 executive vicepresidents and chapter presidents.

BUREAU OF AUDITS AND INVESTIGATIONS
OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL

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STATE OF CALIFORNIA

RESPONSE OF THE CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF
CORRECTIONS AND REHABILITATION

BUREAU OF AUDITS AND INVESTIGATIONS
OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL

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STATE OF CALIFORNIA