Friday, December 18, 2020

MDOC Commish Responds to State Auditor

 MDOC Commissioner Burl Cain issued the following statement. 

Unfortunately based on my review of today's audit results by Mississippi State Auditor Shad White, I am not entirely surprised at the Auditor's findings," said Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain.  "Much of the accounting for this massive department was too loose and uncontrolled, and when you're trying to find money to run 21 prisons to house 17,000 inmates, you need every dollar you can find.  That's why we pointed out many of the findings that now appear in the report and why Governor Reeves asked Mr. White to help us implement better and clearer accountability."


The 36-page official Audit of the Mississippi Department of Corrections covered the period from July 1, 2017, through December 31, 2019.  Among many problem areas, MDOC auditors found inappropriate and possibly illegal payouts to certain previous executive MDOC leadership for alleged compensatory time, or "comp time." Comp time is considered time off for employees who work over an eight-hour day and can be accumulated over months.


Commissioner Cain said, "If true, the improper accounting leaves us with no way to verify if those employees actually worked all those hours and, if they did not, then that would be  the same as stealing money from taxpayers."  Among the report's findings, State Auditor White stated that one of Commissioner Cain's predecessors received an illegal buyback of comp time totaling $109,446,  and a Deputy Commissioner  received buybacks of $240,000.  The audit also stated that the effect of the additional salaries increased retirement payouts for the two.


In February 2020, MDOC executive auditors flagged the final comp time payout which had been submitted and refused to pay it.  As stated in the report by Auditor White, MDOC has worked tirelessly since February to correct most, if not all, issues identified in the report.


"Our management staff has all agreed to set a higher standard," added Commissioner Cain, "so that taxpayers will have a department on which they can depend for efficient service. Many great people have worked at MDOC for years and they have been very happy to finally be able to make suggestions for improvements. So we have already taken corrective measures, such as:

*         "All compensatory payments have been stopped;

*         "A full property inventory of MDOC property is being taken;

*         "That property which is not needed for operations is being turned over to the state's surplus agency for disposal;

*         "Travel accounting has been returned to the transparency called for by law with far less travel being approved."

The Commissioner ended by saying, "This is only the beginning.  We look forward to working with the state auditor in streamlining our accounting system to better serve everyone involved."

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Burrrrrrl “full of shit” Cain

Anonymous said...

Hopefully this will create a pipeline of CPA's from the OSA to these agencies with their newfound budget increase. Mississippi's systems are so terrible bc no decent accountant will leave the private sector to take a 30% cut in pay.

Until the state steps up and pays fair market value for financial professionals they will continue to have executives who steal with impunity.

Anonymous said...

The commissioner will be wildly berated on this blog and I can't understand why...unless it's just the small legion of duds who supported Marshall Fisher's incompetency, Pulisha Hall's disastrous time there and Phil's lack of judgement in filling every position he ever filled.

It's great to see this theft exposed as well as the new commissioner's support of and insistence in correction of the deficiencies noted in the audit.

Lock 'em Up said...

$240,000 in comp time! That is one hard working civil servant working at least 48 hours per day.

The records may have been destroyed but there is at least one clerk who knows what was going on.

Anonymous said...

One way to fix these problems is to give DFA more oversight of the financial activities of these agencies. Until that is done it will continue.

Anonymous said...

Without records, it did not happen. Plain and Simple. I worked in the state system to long to assume otherwise. You document comp time, have it available for inspection, at least two other people in the office/unit know where your written documentation log is and it is preserved and managed just like a spread sheet and is a permanent record. This is bullshit. Stealing, pure and simple. Allowed stealing with zero oversight, no supervisory concern, and, in fact, supervisory encouragement. This begins and ends with the governor's office. Take a look at any governor's retirement calculations and imagine how many days of untaken vacation and sick time are in their formula. Never took a day of vacation. Right.

Anonymous said...

Offset for accepting less than 'fair market value' was always supposed to be the job security and PERS. All for paying 'fair market value' but not if the exchange doesn't include new employees moving to a 401(k) retirement approach.

Anonymous said...

"Without records, it did not happen. Plain and Simple. I worked in the state system to long to assume otherwise. You document comp time, have it available for inspection,"

I know exactly what you're talking about.

But I was a piss ant in State service,
These are executives.
Double standard is not even the word.

I have nothing personal against Phil Bryant, but I'm convinced his office needs to be audited as well.



Anonymous said...

I hope the post at 4:30 makes sense to somebody out there. Weed at 4:30 on a work day?

Anonymous said...

3:19, the vacation, sick time and comp time goes on any that has state benefits. I know people in city and county jobs that have years of vacation, sick and comp time on the books.

Anonymous said...

What'd you expect? He said what "had" to say.

Anonymous said...

3:19 - I agree with everything you have to say; UNTIL the closing. Governors, nor any other elected official, do not get "comp time". They are not salaried, or hourly employees. Their salary is set by statute. Does not matter if they work 2 hours a day or 20. 7 days a week or 2. They get the salary. No comp time, no vacation time payment, no annual leave payment, nothing more. Nice try, but you lost yourself by going just a bit too far.

5:55 - 4:30 made absolute sense to me. And no, I've had no weed, medicinal or recreational (although I recognize that in 95% of the cases, there is no difference) today. Or for that matter, forever. Unlike Bill Clinton, I didn't even have the opportunity to inhale.

Go back and look at it again. The argument that the state has made when accused of paying less than 'fair market value' (althougn according to studies done every few years, these state salaries has matched FMV, except of course for most statewide elected officials) state employees receive a very generous retirement plan -- paid for mostly by the taxpayers, and is a defined benefit plan vs what all other workers get which is a defined contribution plan -- along with much higher medical benefits than do most private sector employees. So 4:30 was saying, according to my reading, was that if these state employees want their job security and taking "less" than 'fair market value', then quit stealing for extra money, padding your alreay generous retirement benefit, eliminate PERS and replace it with a 401K like everybody else has done over the last 4 decades.

Anonymous said...

Will not ever touch Fisher and Bryant. They are way too powerful to fall to such small money as DOC comp time but out. They are smart. They do higher crimes that involve way more than a few hundred grand. Those mean are evil, crooks, liars, thieves, and thugs. But.... the state loves them! They are a God to the GOP...

Anonymous said...

Can someone please call all of this what it is...Massive failure to lead by Phil Bryant. Did the guy ever have a meeting with the people he appointed to lead any of these agencies? Prisons, dept. of health, dept of mental health, child protection services, and so many more! If not, why not? To stand idly by and allow directors of state agencies to steal from the public is a huge dereliction of his duties as chief executive of a state. Has anyone notice how few people even follow him now on social media? He is a clown and will go down as one of the worst governors in Mississippi history. He will be indicted, if the truth comes out and the state auditor should be ashamed for not going after him. What a piece of shit! Only out for himself as well! When is a story going to be done on this? When???? A Governor cannot just appoint people and not hold them accountable, if they do, there is a reason!!!

Kingfish said...

The fact is there were too many people around Phil Bryant who saw him as their pigeon and he proved them right. I warned you people for years about Marshall Fisher as I did Porter Bingham. Just as people now see how crooked Bingham was, so they are now starting to see all of Fisher's failings. Fisher's ego and need for power ran DPS into the ground, finishing what Cruz started.

There were good troops at DPS that wanted the Commish job but Phil just had to appoint his buddy to the job. Disappointed and knowing what Fisher was about, they all started leaving. Fisher replaced them all with his merry band of sycophants who were just as corrupt and arrogant as he.

Move over to MDOC and he did the same thing. He cleaned house superficially and then brought in Hall who proceeded to treat it as her personal playpen, just as Fisher and Dowdy did at DPS.

Phil was a weak Governor and a weak man. Worked hard but unlike Haley, he didn't know the right questions to ask or when to question anything.

Oh, notice how many Phillies supported Waller. Just like Phil, Waller would've been to ignorant to keep them in line as shown by some of his ignorant answers during the debate. He never bothered to ask why they were helping him, if he cared.

Anonymous said...

7:02 - The comments about Bryant have nothing to do with comp time or his salary. The comments refer to the retirement calculation of his retirement check. Has nothing to do with being salaried or hourly. Even FLSA exempt and appointed positions have certain benefits and perks. There's a lot of real sharp No.2 pencils down to the PERS office.

Anonymous said...

@6:20 about Employees with years of sick & Comp time on the books. I worked for the Federal Government for a few years. Even worse there. We had 1 Employee I never saw. He was out when I went to work & drew his sick & comp for 1 year 7 months. That was when he retired. So for the last 1.5 years of his active employment, he never had to show up. Everyone knew how to Game the system.

It's Gonna Work Out Y'all said...

Not to worry! A day of fasting and prayer will take care of all this corruption.


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