News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
A lack of management oversight within the Cookeville Fire Department led to an alleged time sheet fraud according to a Tennessee Comptroller investigation.
Retired Captain Marvin Montgomery and current Fire Captain Shawn Roberson would clock a 24 hour work day at the fire department. While also clocking an eight to nine hour shift at the Tennessee Fire and Codes Enforcement Academy on the exact same day.
Director of Communications John Dunn said there needed to be someone asking questions when time sheets were turned in.
“In this circumstance this would have been the Fire Chief,” Dunn said. “Or for Roberson, I believe Montgomery actually approved his time sheets. So whoever the supervisor is, has a responsibility to ask questions, to take a deeper look, really make sure that person was there on the time that they put down on their time sheet and if they weren’t you shouldn’t pay them for it.”
According to the investigation, The Fire Chief worked directly with Montgomery at the same fire station each day and was responsible for approving any leave Montgomery would have taken from his fire department position to work at the Academy. Dunn said that having a citizen inside or outside departments bringing this to their attention protects tax payer dollars.
“It is vitally important that people report suspected fraud, waste and abuse of public money to our office,” Dunn said. “And we’re thankful that there are folks both within government and folks outside of government who report that information to us. That helps us to weed this kind of activity out.”
Dunn said the investigation focused on times between January 2017 and February 2019. Dunn said that time sheet fraud is common because as he mentioned, there often is no one looking closely at time sheets.
“You need to go back, take a look for yourself, determine was that person really here that day? Were they really putting in the hours?” Dunn said. “It’s really up to management to do that work on the front end to prevent that paycheck from going out the door, that should never have been sent.”
According to the report, there is still an unpaid balance of $16,118 owed to Cookeville.
The report says that Montgomery retired, effective March 28, 2019 when the investigation began. Cookeville collected $16,094 from Montgomery’s accrued leave balance with the knowledge that the Comptroller’s investigation was not complete.
