‘Unprofessional’ County HR Staff Cost Taxpayers More than $450K

No criminal charges are expected following a sweeping probe that examined allegations of health care fraud by Bucks County government employees.

While the investigation showed almost no fraud by employees, it did find that county Human Resources staff had failed at their duties and even misled top county government officials, according to District Attorney David Heckler. Heckler said the roughly 150 employees whose benefits and dependents were investigated did not turn up widespread wrong doing. The district attorney did add that an investigation into only one employee is still open.

Officials from the district attorney’s office and county controller’s office, backed by the county commissioners, called for the “dismissal or severe reprimand” of HR department staff Friday morning at a press conference in Doylestown.

The HR department has been lead by Meredith Dolan since 2008 and has a staff of eight full-time employees and one part-time worker.

Bucks County Controller Ray McHugh said it was too soon to comment as to how HR staff would be reprimanded or if the department would be disbanded and outsourced. Commissioner Chairman Robert Loughery said that “someone has to be held accountable” for what other officials called “unprofessional” and “lax” work by HR.

“This investigation revealed a county department that had lost its way,” McHugh said.

Statements made by officials and information contained in a grand jury report that was released Friday showed “the estimated premium-cost losses that could have been avoided by better HR practices and procedures are in excess of $450,000.” Heckler also said more money was lost due to the year-long county probes into the alleged misconduct, however, he did not have an exact figure.

The grand jury that was pulled together during the investigation also provided recommendations on how the county could improve the HR system. Officials said the ideas are being looked at and some are already in place.

The large investigation originally focused on county employees who reportedly had dependents that were no longer eligible for heath care, however, the focus turned to the work of the HR department. McHugh told reporters that HR employees “repeatedly blamed county employees for failing to follow protocols that were never established or defined.” He said in some cases computer system glitches and other problems were blamed.

In an email from 2013, Dolan said she took “great offense” when it was suggested by a county commissioner that inaccurate information was reported by HR after questions about dependents arose.

“Ineligible dependents” are  former spouses, deceased family members or children and young adults who were no longer of age for county insurance or who had obtained their own coverage. The grand jury report found those dependents were kept on the rolls “because of mistakes made or inaction with human resources, not because of fraud by the employee.”

The grand jury reported details on the out-of-date HR department. According to the 76-page document, the department uses mostly paper records and relied on the “honor system” when handling dependent changes. The report said there was plenty of room for changes to “slip through the cracks.”

Dolan told commissioner Diane Marseglia via email in summer 2013 that HR takes “great pride” in maintaining and keeping up with dependent changes submitted by the roughly 1,700 employees covered by county insurance.

“Clearly, this investigation has found otherwise, as investigators found three time-stamped divorce decrees in the HR files for divorced employees who had asked that their spouses be removed from the coverage at the time of their divorce decrees,” the grand jury report states on page 27 in response to the email from Dolan to Marseglia.

A county employee’s ex-husband received health care coverage for 92 months after their divorce, which cost taxpayers $35,107. The grand jury report says the man did not use the benefits in the time after his ex-wife had filed paperwork following their divorce but the HR department failed to follow through with removing him.

There were many other cases like it, officials said.

The county requested an audit following a suggestion from an Upper Bucks County resident in 2012. The audit returned in 2013 and showed 192 dependents were dropped because they were not eligible.

From there, officials said the Bucks County Courier Times and Intelligencer newspapers highlighted the issue after the audit results were announced at a public meeting. The newspaper’s, both owned by the same company, wrote editorials that called the employees who were then determined to have ineligible dependents “thieves” that “stole the county’s money,” which further investigation found to be untrue.

Heckler said at the press conference he was not pleased with the coverage and called it “malarkey.”

The grand jury report said the newspaper reports lead to members of the public to “perceive that widespread insurance fraud was being committed by county employees.”

Loughery said the negative view by taxpayers hurt the moral of county workers and gave the county a black eye.

The grand jury report states there are “continuing problems” within the HR department and county money continues to be wasted.

Officials said they will meet next week to determine the next step. They said they could not comment as to whether the other tasks handled by the HR department were skewed like the benefits program.

Dolan did not return request for comment on Friday and a staff member reported she was out of the office Friday afternoon. Loughery said he did not see any representatives of the HR department at the press conference.

Click to access Grand-Jury-Report.pdf