John Beale is the now infamous Environmental Protection Agency employee who pretended to be a CIA agent. As part of this ruse, he took off for long stretches at a time and traveled — often first class — at taxpayer expense. All in all, he bilked Uncle Sam out of nearly $900,000.
But it turns out you don’t need a fake CIA cover to pull a John Beale. According to a just-released audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, New Yorkers, too, are getting hosed by some public employees.
The audit reviewed 345 workers at six state agencies and public authorities. It discovered that 75 held two public-sector jobs, lied about it on their timesheets and reaped double the pay.
“Dozens of public employees working for more than one public employer have managed to take advantage of lax oversight and take credit for hours they didn’t work,” DiNapoli said. “Our audits found supervisors were lax and often complicit in allowing employees to game the system.”
Like the nurse who claimed to work for both the state mental-health agency and a Bronx public school. Or the MTA track-equipment worker whose work schedule overlapped with his other job at the city Department of Environmental Protection.
What’s legal may be even worse. As The Post reported last week, a lawyer leaving the office of departing Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes will collect more than $280,000 in unused vacation pay.
Abuses happen in the private sector, too. The difference is that private companies have more incentive to stop it.
The moral of the story? The bigger the government, the bigger the opportunities for cheats.