Hialeah hired Davie private eye firm to follow workers

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald

Posted on Thursday, 05.17.12
Hialeah hired Davie private eye firm to follow workers

The city of Hialeah paid $9,000 to have a private-detective firm tail three workers who were suspected of abusing sick time.

By Enrique Flor
[e-mail]

A Davie private-eye firm was hired by the city of Hialeah to follow three city employees who have since been fired after it was discovered that they went shopping during working hours and lied when calling in sick.

RJD Unlimited Investigations, owned by Ronald Drury, followed and filmed Hialeah Water and Sewer Department employees Maritza Martínez and Carlos Rodríguez and License Department inspector Mario Figueredo for several days. The city paid $9,000 to have them tailed.

Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernández said Wednesday that the cost of hiring RJD was minimal compared to the fired employees’ salaries.

“These people were stealing money from Hialeah residents,” Hernández said. “We could not allow this. Our responsibility is to find a way for our administration to be more efficient and make sure that our employees do their work.”


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/17/2805058/hialeah-hired-davie-private-eye.html

[dballance]

1. Well that seems like a city governement doing a good job

If people are giving the mayor crap for not bidding out the job screw them. He got rid of two abusive employees for only $9k.

[Sherman A1]

2. The mayor lost money on that deal

paid the PI $9K for the cost of how many sick days? Those jobs will undoubtedly have to be replaced so he didn't really save the yearly salaries.

Granted what the employees did was wrong and they should have been disciplined, there is no dispute on that point. It could have probably been handled for far less money and one would think the City would have some sort of Inspector General or simply use the Police department. This investigation couldn't have taken all that much time and they had to be tipped off in some fashion.

[IamK]

3. he saved money by now paying people who are at work n/t

[Nay]

5. he also saved $ by putting all other employees on notice that sick time was not to be abused. nt

[trumad]

4. LOL--

As if you never took a sick day---one that is owed to you--- off when you weren't sick.

[tclambert]

6. The US Postal Service has its own police force to do that.

They call them Postal Inspectors. Technically, their mission is to enforce postal laws and regulations. They didn't do such a good job finding out who mailed anthrax to powerful people (and mostly made postal workers sick). One of their main jobs is to "observe" (spy on) postal employees and find reasons to fire them. I'm not accusing them of any wrongdoing. It just seems their priorities skew toward the firings rather than toward catching serious criminals.

From what I understand, a lot of large corporations have their own "security" services, except I guess for the financial sector, which is run like the Wild West.

[MrYikes]

7. This is easy to fix.

Just do away with sick days. In fact since the employee was hired to do x amount of work each day, if they do not come to work, they should pay the employer for the missed work. Just one more paper to sign when you hire in.

[midnight]

8. Smart employers offer a reward system to prevent abuse of sick time via paid leave bank...

"Another concept that many employers have found useful in cutting down on unscheduled absences is known either as a paid leave bank (PLB) or a paid time off program (PTO). This program requires employees to consider all of their vacation, sick, and personal days as one unit to be used either for PTO or serious catastrophic situations. This system forces an employee who is abusing their sick day privileges to subtract them from their vacation time or personal days if they continue to do so. Since the time that falls under the PTO plan is essentially the employee's time, they would be less likely to abuse it. This plan also helps to cut down on unscheduled absences that disrupt the workplace. On the positive side, a company is better able to control costs under this system while still allowing an employee to take additional time if something catastrophic happens to them. A reward system can also be built into this plan to encourage employees from taking unscheduled absences off.

If a company offers employment options like flextime or working at home, they also stand the chance of cutting back on unscheduled absences. With a flexible schedule, employees can rearrange their work times to attend to a personal situation like taking their child to the doctor in the morning. After their personal business is taken care of, they can still come in and put in a full day at the office and not have to use a personal day. The option to work at home can also cut down on an unscheduled absence if employees are too sick to report to work but healthy enough to perform their duties. Many such duties can be done at home with the help of a laptop or other device that is useful in telecommuting. Another benefit to this option is that other employees will stand less of a chance of coming down with an illness if the employee who is already sick just works from home."http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/small/Qu-Sm/Sick-Leave-and-Personal-Days.html

It's seems more economical and less intrusive, and creates a better work environment.



Read more: Sick Leave and Personal Days - benefits, Problems with sick leave and personal days http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/small/Qu-Sm/Sick-Leave-and-Personal-Days.html#ixzz1vDuFI0dR

[sendero]

10. My company does not offer "sick days".

.... it offers "personal time off". You get X days (I get a lot!) and they are for whatever, sick, vacation, take care of business, go shopping whatever.

I prefer this to the "sick days" as it takes the moral ambiguity out of taking a day off. "Sick" can cover, reasonably in my opinion, a lot of things - things like "I don't have 102 fever but I just don't feel well".

But I can understand how an employer might think that if you are running down to Target you might be "well" enough to come to work.

[ellenfl]

9. did they forget to get a note from their parents?

for crying out loud, your sick days are yours. no matter how you use them. they're called benefits, not contingencies.

[shanti]

11. that's what a boss told me once

he said that our time off was our own and we could do what we wanted with it.