In June 2016 the County Auditor's Office was contacted to report serious allegations about timecard and database fraud at the Santa Barbara County Shelter. Because most of the employees are hourly and they are not required to punch a timeclock, their time record is the only evidence of their hours worked and any fraud is usually taken very seriously. Each employee's supervisor has to sign their timecard and their signature verifies that the reported hours are accurate.

The reported allegations were as follows:

1- Shelter employees were allowed to leave early on holidays but were paid for a full day.

2- The shelter supervisor was working many hours of overtime but was not reporting it on her timecard.

3- The animal database that provides a history of actions for each animal was being manipulated to show animals as being adopted that were only in foster. This made the shelter look like it was performing better than it was.

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The Auditor's Office investigated these allegations and substantiated them (see memo here). But in doing so, they altered the allegations to protect the County employees from possible punishment from their HR department for these serious violations of timecard and database rules. Being paid for the wrong number of hours on holdays became miscoded time. Database fraud was converted into a subject related to fees not received.

The memo asks the County Animal Services Department and the managers that condoned these practices to respond. The person that reported this info to the County Auditor's Office was not provided a copy of the memo until he made an official public info request for it. The County will not say whether any employees or managers were were disciplined for their timecard fraud as they say that this is all confidential personnel info that can't be provided by the public.