A California Department of Motor Vehicles employee slept thousands of hours on the job since 2014, a report released Tuesday from the state's auditor says.
The report estimates the employee slept three or more hours daily at her desk since February 2014, totaling over 2,200 hours of work time and costing more than $40,000.
The employee worked as a key data operator. Her duties included "routine data entry for change of address and new vehicle ownership forms," the report says.
She processed less than half the documents that she was expected to – an average of 200 documents a day, when key data operators are expected to process more than 550, according to the report.
While her supervisors were aware of the issue, the report found that they underestimated the amount of time the employee was sleeping on the job and did not properly follow disciplinary procedures.
A supervisor reported waking the employee up "three to four times each day," the report says. It says the work the employee did complete "was often so inaccurate" that coworkers wouldn't trust her to correctly enter their address or vehicle ownership change.
Supervisors suspected a medical issue was contributing to the employee's problems, which led them to be "reluctant to take further steps to address the employee’s sleeping and poor production."
The employee's doctor told the DMV she was unable to perform the duties associated with her job. Subsequently, the employee obtained a physician's release saying she was able to perform her job's duties, the report says.
Earlier this year, the DMV said it was unable to proceed with disciplinary action because the issues had not been adequately documented. The report says that documentation was completed in March of this year.
The state auditor's office investigated 1,481 instances of alleged improper governmental activities in the past year, the report says.
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