DMV workers wasted almost $100,000, NC audit says

Over the last three years, high-ranking DMV employees wasted nearly $100,000 of taxpayer money, according to a new report that found hundreds of unauthorized trips in state vehicles.

One mid-level supervisor told the Office of the State Auditor that at least some of the wasteful spending was due to a “paramilitary” culture the leadership fostered, in which superiors’ decisions could not be questioned.

The audit identified two separate issues, both involving improper use of state-owned vehicles.

One regional DMV manager never paid back more than $5,600 she owed the state, the audit found. But the main focus of the audit was a former deputy commissioner who oversaw the DMV’s law enforcement arm, the License and Theft Bureau. The audit said his orders to an inspector violated office policy and led to $85,000 in waste.

While it’s unclear if the state will get any of the money back, state officials did tell the auditor’s office they’ve started putting GPS trackers in cars that employees take home.

“As a result of this audit, we are working to strengthen our policies and procedures to ensure this does not happen again,” said a written statement from the DMV.

The auditor’s office didn’t name any of the employees involved, but the Department of Transportation confirmed that Randy Dishong was the deputy commissioner named in the report. Dishong couldn’t be reached Wednesday.

Between 2014 and 2016, Dishong reported to Kelly Thomas, who led the DMV under former Republican Gov. Pat McCrory. The DMV is a part of DOT, which was led by Tony Tata during most of that time. All three men are veterans.

Before entering state government when McCrory took office, Dishong and Tata worked together at Wake County schools. According to Dishong’s LinkedIn page, he had several jobs leading security, emergency response and transportation for the school district while Tata was the superintendent there.

The audit found that the inspector, who wasn’t identified, was first tapped by Thomas and Dishong to “reform” the DMV, the audit said, although it’s unclear what that entailed. Later, the inspector continued reporting directly to Dishong for “special projects,” bypassing several steps in the normal chain of command.

“If they had a problem and they didn’t want to deal with it, they would throw me at it,” the inspector told State Auditor Beth Wood’s investigators.

The DMV’s License and Theft Bureau investigates car theft and identity fraud, and also is in charge of regulating dealerships and other auto industry businesses. The audit didn’t say what type of sensitive cases Dishong had the inspector pulled off normal duties to handle, but those cases required the inspector to be in Raleigh almost all the time.

However, the inspector lived in coastal Beaufort County and was assigned to an office in Greenville. DMV rules say employees can’t live more than 50 miles from where they work if they drive a state car, but Dishong had the inspector coming to Raleigh almost daily in his state-owned car.

The inspector’s supervisor told auditors he almost never came in for his regular job after starting to do Dishong’s “special projects.” The supervisor said the inspector was at the Greenville office “maybe five to 10 hours a month, maybe.”

The supervisor said he never reported the policy violations involved in the inspector commuting to Raleigh with his state car, even though his duty station hadn’t been switched to Raleigh and he hadn’t gotten an exemption to commute hundreds of miles per day.

“When somebody tells you to do something, you just go do it,” the audit quotes the supervisor as saying. “It’s a paramilitary organization, you don’t question people.”

All the unauthorized travel – nearly 92,000 miles between 2014 and 2016 – put more than $50,000 of unexpected wear and tear on the vehicle, the audit found.

And what’s more, the inspector was also paid for his time spent commuting – a three-and-a-half-hour round trip. He made $33,215 just for driving between his home and Raleigh, the audit found.

The inspector’s Greenville supervisor signed off on his hours even though he almost never saw the inspector. The supervisor claimed to just be following orders and trying not to bother the agency’s political bosses for whom the inspector was working.

“I wasn’t calling the commissioner to say, ‘Did he work these hours?’ ” the supervisor told auditors.

The DMV did not report any punishments against the inspector, saying he “believed that his travel was proper.” It also noted that Dishong doesn’t work there anymore.

Finally, the DMV acknowledged “lax adherence” to the rules “under a previous administration.” Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, took office in January after defeating McCrory.

An unauthorized commute using a state-owned car was also what landed the other worker in hot water with the auditor’s office.

As with Dishong, the audit didn’t name the employee, but DMV confirmed it was Stacy Wooten, who remains in her job as the zone chief based in Winston-Salem.

Between 2014 and 2016 Wooten put 14,400 miles on her state-owned vehicle for personal use, and failed to reimburse the state $5,616, the audit found. She had been driving it between home and work even though she shouldn’t have been, according to the audit.

The audit said Wooten had applied for the take-home car and Tata had approved it, even though her application said she didn’t qualify. The audit faulted Tata or his designee for missing that, and also faulted the people in charge of looking after take-home cars for missing it.

A manager at the state Department of Administration’s motor fleet office told the auditor’s office that “it should have raised a red flag” and noted its work to begin outfitting such cars with GPS trackers to cut down on similar incidents in the future.

The DMV told the auditor’s office in a separate letter it will talk to Wooten about paying the money, but higher-ups don’t think she should be forced to do so. In lieu of getting the money back, both the DMV and the auditor’s office said, it might be possible to amend her income tax paperwork to reflect the vehicle use as a benefit.

This story was originally published November 28, 2017 at 1:48 PM with the headline "DMV workers wasted almost $100,000, NC audit says."