WASHINGTON – If there were a licensed trademark for goofing around, this group of federal workers would own it.
For more than four years employees of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board had so little work to do, they spent nearly 90 percent of their work days in “non-production time” but still got paid – and even received hefty bonuses, an internal investigation found.
A Commerce Department inspector general’s report said “substantial, pervasive” waste in the office totaled more than $5 million between 2009 and 2012.
A group of about four dozen paralegals had “insufficient workloads and considerable idle time during work hours,” the report found.
But many got paid to essentially do nothing, despite a backlog of cases.
One chief patent judge told investigators: “I almost don’t blame [the paralegals] for watching TV, because, I mean, you’re sitting
around for 800 hours.”
The problem got so bad that the board starting logging the goof-off hours as “Other Time.”
A senior manager described other time as: “I don’t have work but I’m going to get paid code.”
The feds began the investigation after whistleblowers complained about their own lack of work – although no one came forward for three years.
Many of the employees did their “work” from home, despite teleworking rules that require productivity.
According to the report, paralegals told investigators that during their Other Time they watched TV, surfed the internet, went on Facebook, volunteered, did laundry, exercised and did home shopping.
Managers were “completely aware” of the problem, according to the report.
Even workers who logged over half their time as Other Time got bonuses of up to $3,500 per year.
Part of the problem was a surge in patent appeals but a lack of judges to generate new work for the paralegals. Sometimes bosses developed “special projects” to give paralegals something to do.
“These efforts, however, were feeble, half-hearted, and ineffective at addressing the problem,” investigators concluded.
“In the worst cases, paralegals seemed content to have extensive idle time while collecting full salaries and benefits, and PTAB management seemed to sit on their hands, anticipating the arrival of judges at some unknown date in the future,” investigators found.
The Commerce Department is preparing a formal response, but says it has already made “structural improvements” to remedy the situation.