DHR consultant’s pay probed

The head of the state Department of Human Resources, whose hiring practices have drawn past scrutiny, is facing new allegations of preferential treatment of an employee.

Georgia’s inspector general is investigating the employment of Cynthia Tate after an anonymous complaint said Tate was a “personal friend” of B.J. Walker, commissioner of the department, when Tate was hired.

The complaint also alleged that Walker allowed Tate to charge the state for hours not worked to compensate for her travel costs to and from Chicago, where she lives while commuting regularly to Georgia for her work. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution received a copy of that complaint, made anonymously by a DHR employee.

Walker, through a spokeswoman, and Tate each declined to comment. A spokeswoman for DHR, Dena Smith, said, “It’s inappropriate to comment while there is an investigation in progress.”

Tate earned as much as $127,000 a year while working for the Department of Human Resources, describing herself as a consultant on her resume and in an e-mail obtained by the AJC under the state Open Records Act. The DHR oversees social services programs in the state, including mental health, where Tate worked.

The head of the state’s mental health division, Gwen Skinner, wrote in a 2007 e-mail about Tate and her pay: “I understood from what she told me that … she was billing additional hours to cover her travel.”

Deborah Williams, a spokeswoman for the state Personnel Administration, said a state of Georgia employee cannot charge the state for commuting time or expenses from home to work and back.

Employment law experts say it would be unusual if an employee billed extra hours for commuting to and from the workplace.

“Normally, travel time to the workplace … is not time you’d get compensated for,” said David Hagaman, an employment attorney at Ford & Harrison in Atlanta.

DHR spokeswoman Smith said Walker has fully cooperated with the inspector general’s investigation. Smith added that the probe will show the agency “has conducted itself properly” in the matter.

Tate started working for the DHR in January 2005, billing the state $50 an hour, according to documents obtained under the Open Records Act. She reported her hours via e-mail, working up to 156 hours for two-week periods of time. She often reported working more than 100 hours over two weeks, or more than 50 hours per week.

In a 2007 e-mail, Tate said, “I haven’t been doing formal regular reporting because of the way that I work —- ‘embedded consultant’ is what we call me. I report to both [mental health director] Gwen [Skinner] and B.J. [Walker] regularly, and they always know what I’m doing.”

Tate’s work with the agency, according to her resume, has included leading new programs for children’s services; conducting retreats and training sessions; and directing data monitoring of mental health care.

After earning $33,300 in fiscal year 2005, Tate earned $121,900 in fiscal 2006 and $127,050 the next year as a “support services worker” for the DHR, according to state Department of Audits and Accounts records.

She reported $113 in travel reimbursements in fiscal 2006, but none the following year.

Tate earned $68,050 plus $323.11 in travel reimbursements in fiscal 2008, apparently for seven months’ work.

The anonymous complaint alleged that Walker “hired her personal friend from Illinois, Dr. Cynthia Tate.”

There was no indication of a friendship in the DHR documents obtained by the newspaper.

According to their resumes, both Walker and Tate worked at the Illinois Department of Human Services from 1997 to 1999.

Walker also worked for the city of Chicago prior to her appointment at the DHR in May 2004.

The state inspector general, Elizabeth Archer, has acknowledged her agency is looking into the Tate matter, but she declined to comment because the investigation is pending.

In July 2007, Archer issued a report involving three other DHR employees who had worked in Chicago. A complaint had alleged they were being hired by Walker based on “prior friendships.”

The investigation concluded that the three people were hired competitively and were qualified. But the inspector general also found that one of the three employees “created a perception of impropriety” by allowing a second one to telework from Chicago for an extended period of time, violating the agency’s teleworking policy.

“DHR officials should always be mindful of the risk of the appearance of impropriety when a person is hired who already knows the hiring official,” the report said.

The inspector general’s recommendations for the DHR included: “Develop a better system of checks and balances … to ensure hiring procedures are followed in a manner that does not create an impression of favoritism or preferential treatment.”

Records and e-mails show Tate worked as an employee for the DHR until a year ago, when her employment terms changed. E-mails don’t reveal a reason for the switch.

Last February, Tate signed a consulting agreement to work with the DHR on mental health. But her contract was struck with the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, a University of Georgia training and policy research center.

Under that contract, Tate was scheduled to be paid $108,500 for nine months’ work ending last November.

The Vinson Institute requested $17,000 to cover overhead and other costs before it agreed to facilitate the 2008 contract.

The Tate contract was awarded without competitive bidding. The Vinson Institute said the contract was ”sole source” because of Tate’s particular expertise in delivering the service.

But the contract was not posted on the Georgia Procurement Registry, as is required by state law, according to the Department of Administrative Services.

Tate’s pay arrangement concerned some DHR officials last year, according to e-mails. When one agency official, Jim Sanregret, questioned the extra $17,000 paid to UGA for Tate’s work, the state’s mental health director, Skinner, replied: “This is an arrangement the commissioner worked out. … I understand your question and it makes sense. I think that the challenge is that she [Tate] can only be here three days a week.”

The Vinson Institute said it anticipates signing a new consulting contract with Tate soon. The use of consultants —- including agreements through the Vinson Institute —- is a common practice for the DHR.

Georgia’s mental health system has been under federal scrutiny since 2007, when the AJC reported that poor medical care, underfunding and staffing shortages contributed to dozens of suspicious deaths of patients in the seven state-run psychiatric hospitals from 2002 through late 2007.

Currently, the state budget shortfall has forced DHR to cut spending, including furloughing employees one day a month.