Paid for Doing Nothing: Suspended Office Assistant Kept Getting Checks for 12 Years

[tammywammy]

Paid for Doing Nothing: Suspended Office Assistant Kept Getting Checks for 12 Years

Talk about a cushy job! For the last 12 years, a Virginia woman hasn't set foot in her office and has done zero work, yet she's been collecting an annual salary that has totaled more than $300,000. Recently, the bookkeeping mistake was discovered and her payments were discontinued, but now she's filing for wrongful termination and unemployment benefits!

It all started more than a dozen years ago, when Jill McGlone, who had been working as an office assistant for the Norfolk Community Services Board, was suspended for "revealing confidential medical information." Apparently, authorities forgot to suspend her pay, however, and the checks, which totaled about $26,000 per year, kept going out, according to Washington, D.C., news site TBD.

Granted, $26,000 per year is not an exorbitant salary, but considering what she was and wasn't doing to earn it, it's a bit more than generous, really. There's no word on whether or not she received health insurance, but there were definitely retirement savings involved as well, and McGlone is upset that she's been unable to access them since she was terminated.

Her situation was only uncovered recently, when a new supervisor, Maureen Womack, came in to take the reigns of Norfolk CSB. She went over the budget, discovered the human resource department's mistake, and fired McGlone with alacrity.

But McGlone, silent for 12 years, has found her voice at last. TBD reports that, in a letter to the city manager of Norfolk, she wrote, "The denial of my unemployment benefits, the wrongful termination of my employment, and the refusal to allow me to draw down the money in my retirement are issues needed for discussion."
-snip-

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/07/22/office-assistant-jill-mcglone-paid-12-years-for-a-job-she-didnt/?a_dgi=aolshare_facebook

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. McGlone has nerve to write that letter.

[tammywammy]

2. Here's another article on it

CSB: Managers knew about no-show worker

NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) - Four managers and an executive assistant at the Norfolk Community Services Board were fired or forced to resign Friday because they all knew an employee, who stopped showing up for work, continued to receive her salary and full benefits for 12 years, according to agency executives.

The agency, funded solely by taxpayers, announced Friday afternoon that the five employees knew that Jill McGlone, an office assistant, was receiving $29,000 a year for doing nothing, and in some cases they even helped her, according to the CSB.

"As anyone who has heard this story has felt, I was shocked and angry about what happened," said Dr. Lewis Taylor, Chair of the Board of Directors . "It brings embarrassment to an agency whose 300 employees work hard." Dr. Taylor said the money that went to McGlone every year should have gone to the treatment of low-income Norfolk residents with mental illness or substance abuse issues.

The relatively new executive director of the agency, Maureen Womack discovered the phantom employee and immediately reported it to the board. On Friday she fired Brenda Wise, Director of Administration and Laurie Paquin, former Executive Assistant to Dr. George Pratt who was the agency's longtime executive director. Womack also forced three other employees to resign immediately. Linda Berardi, Human Resources Officer; Suzanne Williams, Chief Financial Officer; and Anthony Crisp, Director of Clinical Services were all told to pack their desks and leave on Friday.
-snip-

http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_news/norfolk/csb-says-employees-knew-about-no-show-worker

[awoke_in_2003]

18. i'd use another word...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chutzpah

[rucky]

3. Nobody says "boo" when a failed executive gets a severance bonus

in the millions.

Good for her.

[Horse with no Name]

5. She work (ed) for a mental health facility

Publicly funded...and revealed PRIVATE medical information about clients. Think about that!

She has NO right to anything except a kick in the ass out of the door. I'd feel the same as you if she were wrongfully terminated or fired for being sick or fired for being a whistleblower, but this isn't the case. She betrayed a sacred trust.

[tammywammy]

7. She was suspended twice, once for bringing a weapon to work

and second for revealing confidential information.

"According to a 16 page civil lawsuit , Community Services Board employee Jill McGlone was suspended twice. The first time was in April 1998 for having a weapon at work and she was suspended again two months later for disclosing confidential information about a CSB client."
.
http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_news/norfolk/mcglone-may-have-to-pay-back-money-

Both of those are terminable offenses, I don't understand why she was only suspended the first go around. And then 5 employees covered up that she was on payroll this whole time. This whole thing is f-i-s-h-y.

[ejpoeta]

11. five employees covered up that she was getting that paycheck for 12 years!!

well i hope they all get in trouble then.

[tammywammy]

12. There's a civil suit already

http://media2.wavy.com/html/PDFs/Community%20Service%20Board%20v%20Berardi.pdf

It's for over $300k.

Why the heck would these people cover up for a woman not working for 12 years?

[malletgirl02]

13. Not only a mental Health Facility

It provided services to low income people. She was taking money meant to give services to the most vulnerable people in society.

[Obamanaut]

6. Fraud. Caught. Restitution and/or jail time. nt

[kelly1mm]

14. Do you know how underfunded public mental health is in this country?

This employee brought a weapon to work AND revealed confidential records of a client and you think she should be congratulated? SICK!

[onethatcares]

4. as one that makes about 26K a year, I can tell ya

it's not an exorbitant salary. I wish I had 12 years of severance for not working to look forward to in my retirement plan.

[ejpoeta]

10. i am betting that won't be considered severance. She is going to have to pay that back.

[MiniMe]

8. She got unemployment benefits for 12 years

I have no sympathy for this situation

[ejpoeta]

9. I know it is wrong, but I can't help thinking of that guy from office space.

the one with the stapler. When they bring in the two bob's they discover that he was let go years ago but through a glitch he had been still receiving his check. The boss says, so you'll let him go? The two bob's say, no we had the glitch fixed. So no one bothers to tell him and he doesn't receive a paycheck.

This woman is a piece of work though... She didn't go to work for 12 years, but kept receiving a paycheck. She should have notified the employer but she kept cashing those checks for 12 years!! That is fraud! And now she has the nerve to expect to get UNEMPLOYMENT!! She owes that company all that money back! and i am pretty sure she will not qualify for unemployment... and she wouldn't have at the time she was suspended considering WHY she was suspended either!

[KT2000]

15. So no one ever

had to sign that her work hours were correct? This lady is an idiot but so is the office she worked in.

[Gin]

16. someone did sign that she was there...and she got benefits

along with the income..

[KT2000]

19. OK - thanks

that (or those people) should be charged with fraud.

[Poll_Blind]

17. There is some majorly fishy shit going on with this. Other posters in the thread have...

...posted some very good questions and others have provided more information from other articles. On the surface this would appear to be some bizarro "clerical mistake" but I think any further scrutiny reveals this coverup required too many people to "sign off" in one fashion or another, in order for this to occur.

Already a few people have been fired. I believe I read there was a civil suit of some sort about the back salary. Nomatter what, though, this is not something that can just "happen". It's not. This smells far more like an organized fraud than anything else. Why? I couldn't say. But just because I don't have the motive for accomplices doesn't mean I don't have every reason to believe they were "in on this" in some way.

PB

[tammywammy]

20. I agree

The first article I read (and posted) was one thing, but then after looking at other articles....

I just wonder what the motivation to keep paying this woman for 12 years was? There were 5 employees fired, what would possess one, let alone 5, people to go along with this?

[Poll_Blind]

23. Some weird shit goes down.

I'm not being facetious either. As I get older, I experience more and more and it's a weird old world we live in.

PB

[Modern_Matthew]

21. Their mistake. Her gain. I hope she gets her benefits. nt

[Joe the Revelator]

22. Why?

[Odin2005]

24. The only reason this is news is because the PTB know it will get people to hate government workers.