An IG report has questioned working hours claimed by Patent and Trademark Office examiners, in particular those claimed as overtime, by both teleworkers and those working on-site.
The report—a followup to a prior one involving a small sample–closely examined more than nine-tenths of hours claimed over a nine-month period, finding a total of nearly 138,000 “unsupported” hours; it also looked at a 15-month period and found nearly 290,000 unsupported hours. That’s about 2 percent of all hours claimed, with a value of $8.8 million and $18.3 million, respectively.
For the nine-month sample, it said that 28 percent of the unsupported time consisted of overtime hours; nearly 300 of the 8,100 examiners studied had 10 percent or more unsupported hours, and most of those further received above-average annual performance ratings; and that 36 of them claimed unsupported hours equal to three days for every biweekly pay period. Findings were similar for the 15-month period.
The report said that it interpreted the data in the way most favorable to the examiners and that the actual number of hours claimed but not worked could be much higher.
The report cited problems including that the agency does not require teleworkers to log in to their computers on workdays if they do not telework full-time; that it requires that only poor performers provide their supervisors with work schedules; and that it does not require that on-site examiners use their agency-issued ID badges to exit through the access control turnstiles during weekday working hours—and thus there is no record of whether they are in the building or have left.
The PTO telework program long has been held up as a model of a well-run government telework program.
