Subject: [NEXTEL-1] City's New Tool Catches Payroll Cheaters

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:02:48 -0500

City's New Tool Catches Payroll Cheaters

VIDEO:  Pam Zekman reports.

http://wbbm.dayport.com/viewer/content/special.php?Art_ID=4616&Format_ID=2&BitRate_ID=8&Contract_ID=31&Obj_ID=

Mar 30, 2004 3:22 pm US/Central

CHICAGO (CBS 2) City inspectors were caught cheating the system and now
the city of Chicago has a new weapon to pinpoint payroll cheaters.

The city building department has quietly put into action some new
technology to stop an old problem -- payroll cheating. The CBS 2
investigative team has been documenting for years how city time killers
falsify timesheets to show they're at work when they're not.

Now a new tool is designed to cramp the style of any building inspector
bent on cheating the taxpayers like the one whose antics CBS 2’s Pam
Zekman exposed a year ago.

Time killers like Boris Gurevich will no longer be able to hide from
their building department supervisors.

“We're on it. We are trying definitely and we are finding ways to not
only hold those people accountable but prevent that from happening,"
said Building Commissioner Norma Reyes.

The department has started using Nextel phones equipped with a global
positioning chip and a service provided by Xora Incorporated. It lets
supervisors track 175 inspectors from the time they punch in through
their shift.

"They can simply go to their computer, click on the individual that
they'd like to find and they would be able to locate them on a map and
be able to pinpoint them within about 300 feet," said Nextel’s Bob
Corrado.

And in case of an emergency -- like a building collapse -- critical time
can be saved.

"I go in the computer, I look at the map and I can see exactly who's my
closest inspector, I then go and dispatch him," Reyes said.

That's not all. Inspectors in the field can use the phone to punch in an
address and find out if permits have been pulled for the work being
done.

"What if there's no permit, immediately they know that and they can
issue a stop work order right there," Reyes said.

That could have prevented the deadly porch collapse in Lincoln Park last
summer. In the aftermath, it was learned inspectors checking other work
at the building had missed the fact that the unsafe porches were built
without a permit.

"The key is communication, you need to have and provide people who work
for you, particularly in public safety,” Reyes said. “As much
information and as quickly as possible and that is what this does.”

Officials say the program costs about $140,000 a year and may be
expanded to other city departments that have staff in the field making
them difficult to track.

http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/local_story_090162642.html

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