TAD management, aka Nancy Swanson and Linda Haugen, is at it again. Now there is a big surprise. They are violating the civil rights of both clients and employees.
Let’s say, for instance, 10 years ago you were an18-year-old unmarried woman who could not care for your newborn and allowed it to go into the foster care system. The baby qualified for AFDC/TANF. Even though you eventually relinquished your parental rights, you will forever be linked to that child in the C-IV system.
Or let’s say your ex-wife decides to go on welfare to sock it to you. You are in the C-IV system as an absent parent whether you like it or not and even if you have paid every dime of child support on time.
Let’s say your daughter is going through a divorce and moves back home with her child because her husband refuses to pay child support and she needs CalWorks until she can get back on her feet. Your address is in C-IV.
Let’s say your elderly parents live with you and the only form of medical insurance they can afford is Medi-Cal. Your address is in the C-IV system.
Let’s say you are a foster parent and your foster children qualify for TANF. Even though the money you receive is for the children, you are in the system.
Let’s say you are a single mom who is a TAD receptionist and you have four children. You qualify for subsidized child care and you are in the system.
Let’s say you are a Welfare-to-Work success story and are now a TAD case worker. You are in the system.
So what is the county doing? The county is taking your San Bernardino County personnel records that are confidential, i.e., name, social security number and address, and cross-referencing them with the Welfare Database, i.e., C-IV, to determine if you, your spouse, parent of a child not living with you, any current or former dependent, or anyone living at your address has ever been on CalWorks, Food Stamps, Medi-Cal, in foster care, been a foster parent, or has received subsidized child care in San Bernardino County.
Then they are auditing that case back for four years to see if you ever looked at it. If you have five years of service or less, you are being fired. If you have over five years of service and own up to it, you are being suspended.
In at least one instance an employee accessed a relative’s record when she was employed by the county in 2006. She quit her job a couple years ago but returned to TAD this year. She has received good WPEs. They audited her and fired her for what she did when she was an employee in 2006 even though she has not done anything like that since she returned to county service.
No one is arguing that an employee should not be accessing confidential information. But neither should the county be cross-referencing your confidential personnel information to determine if you have ever been on welfare, given a child up for adoption, received emergency Medi-Cal for an abortion, or have a significant other receiving TANF for a child you brought into this world. It is not only an invasion of privacy, but I suspect it is illegal.
First, many cases include medical records, drug, alcohol and domestic violence counseling records, copies of your income tax returns, your bank statements and a variety of other documents.
Second, welfare records are CONFIDENTIAL. Clients have a right to privacy and their employers do NOT have the right to this information.
So far over 100 employees are in trouble. Forty have been fired and another 60 terminations are expected. And they have only just begun this witch hunt.
We are not suggesting that if an employee is suspected of accessing records they should not be looking at, they should not be disciplined. However, for example, anyone on welfare has the right to review their own case. And there is a difference in auditing an employee thought to be doing something against policy and checking every employee to see if they have ever been on state aid.
Second, if a client calls me to check on the status of their case and I am not familiar with that client, I will not know until I get into that case that the person is somehow related to a family member. Anyone who has ever used C-IV knows how easy it is to accidentally discover someone’s relative is on aid.
And, this witch hunt doesn’t address the real abuse such as when someone has a neighbor they don’t like and checks out their case to keep tabs on them. Or runs the ex-wife of a spouse who had no common children. Or runs someone they meet in a bar. Or many other real abuses of the system.
It is interesting that there is no money to fund fraud so they can go after welfare cheats, but there is money for this. Also, the database can no longer be run against the criminal warrants system to find felons collecting welfare, but it can be run against the county’s personnel system to find employees who have received welfare benefits.
What can you expect? They have supervisors who pad stats to look good in thier region and then cover it up when it gets exposed. The promote alcoholics to EWS1 (who also have sex during work hours with co-workers) because they are “friends” of somebody. It’s like Wag the Dog. Throw up all the bad doings of lower level staff to cover up the corruption and incompetence of others. I am sure they are dying to get the identities of the TAD workers who read and/or comment on this blog so they can be fired too.
What is our association doing about this and are we as employees going to file a suit against the county or report this abuse to the feds?
I am a victim of this abuse of the system! I had AWESOME WPEs, NEVER had delinquent work, ALWAYS did other people’s work, but I make a handful of mistakes and I’m fired because I am not an a$$ ki$$er? Not, only did they violate my civil rights as this post suggest, they also violated my rights when a specific ACTING supervisor said, “Maybe you shouldn’t be working here then,” when my political beliefs came into question. I am all for filing a suit against the county, but have no clue how to go about doing so.
The county will tell you I quit, but Natalie Harts a LOUSY SPEA rep and James Locurto, DD Tad 1/2 (who’s head is filled with undeserved superiority) said they were going to dismiss me. That there was too many allegations against me for Nancy Swanson to reverse the decision and only suspend me. I had passed probation and was months shy of being there three SOLID years with great and expedient work.
It is their loss that they are left without my skills, and it will be their loss when a judge takes a look at the multitude of cases that are popping up for this HORRENDOUS VIOLATION of Civil Rights and award the plantiffs millions of dollars.
Does anyone know a lawyer that’s willing to take on the County of San-sucka$$-dino???
This kind of thing is the county’s M.O. It happens in other departments as well not just TAD.
Beaufort is correct. This is the County’s MO. Read the post from Mc Mahon on the PD. Sounds just like TAD. Different Department, same problem. Mindless, spineless little managers with little minds. Power tripping on anyone they can. Oh wait, is that the same DD that told everyone at a staff a story about beating a subordinate in a racketball game and then went and announced the subordinates promotion a couple of hours later? If so, why are you suprised?
This computer usage cross referencing thing stinks. Confidentiality has to go both ways. I wonder how many times the DD’s DM’s and their families addresses and other info obtained via personnel records have been run through the system? BOS members? Anyone?
Well, maybe there ought to be a place where everyone affected could post there names and get together, there is power in numbers and like the blog says there are 40 people already with another 60 heads on the chopping block. Maybe there is something to the wrongful termination lawsuit Mark Uffer has filed. does anyone know who his lawyer is?
@ fed up, darn thing that lawyer-client priveledge; otherwise we could just ask.
@ everyone else, has anyone thought of contacting the local news channels? there used to be a guy that fought for people who were wrong by businesses. maybe the news will help us in finding a lawyer to fight the county?
how about meeting at a public place in another county to discuss this??
County employees morale is shot; we’re up in arms about work conditions, hostile work environments, etc., but are powerless to do anything because we don’t have the support of our feckless union SBPEA which we pay dues 26 times a year!
Retaliation by county admin/management is a very real possibility as well as long-term professional blackballing. Speak up and try to do something about a bad work situation and you’ll never get another job anywhere.
So we vent herein, hoping that some higher up will investigate and do something about the chicanery. Usually they just want to find out who’s complaining instead of addressing a specific departmental problem.
Sigh…
You are right on Beaufort. Another demonstration of their incompetence. Any investigation will be all about who complained and they will never even GET the issue at hand.
I’m wondering how many of the fired employees read this website. If everyone has the attitude of Beaufort then you are wasting your time. If by word of mouth people can contact the fired employees to have them contact this website then like I said, here is power in numbers
This sucks! I am on board for the law suit! They cant just pick on us who have been on aid or who is currently on aid. This is discrimination! Does this mean they think little of us who receive public assistance? About a year ago…one of the employees was dating a girl he met in a bar….guess what he did….looked up her case on the department system. The girl called and complained to the DD…yes Locurto….and guess what happened to the employee….yup…PROMOTION! Please keep me updated about the lawsuit….I want my MILLIONS! And when I get them…I am going to buy a brand new sports car and get a licence plate that reads “CNTYPD4″ (County Paid for)! ha!
someone needs to set up a TAD legal defense fund…..Alan?
p.s….i’ll help….
All we need to do is find a money hungry attorney that would be willing to fight against the County!! That should be easy! Oh yeah…guess what else is happening….Swanson is not being fair with the disciplinary decisions. All of them are based on how she is feeling on that particular day. I thought the disciplinary actions had to be aligned with County policy…not department policy! This is another error on the TADs part!
Su,
See my post on “should of thought of that”. Fair Employment and Housing has a lot of power and will investigate and file lawsuits against government agencies, and individuals, that discriminate against recepients and employees. As I stated, discrimination must be the key to the complaint. Oh, and Fair Employment does this for free if they accept the complaint.
I feel discriminated against! Like that Alan?! I want money out of it!
fed up: By all means; go for it! Fight back! Just bear in mind, the county has far greater resources monetarily than probably most if not all who post herein. One should always choose their battles carefully, don’t you think? Often times in these situations it is best to just walk away. I do wish everyone affected by this the very best.
wuss
It is easier to walk away…but not best! I lost my job…I have nothing lose…I can only gain from it. I understand the strength of the government…but we live in America for a reason!
Perhaps these may help…good luck.
http://www.sbcounty.gov/grandjury/complaint.asp
http://www.ca.gov/Jobs/WorkplaceIssues.html
http://www.dol.gov/compliance/
Sharon: Would you mind sharing the names and numbers of your hired sharks? Thanks.
TAD has a policy that an employee is not to look at their case, yet there is C4yourself. For those that don’t know what this is, it is an on line application and case management program. This program allows a person to file on line, then to go and view their case at any time. So, it would seem that TAD does allow a County to view their case. It, also allows any person that has been given the password to another person’s case to access and look at that case. That person could be a family member, an ex, or a neighbor, So, if an employee can view a case through C4yourself, seems to me that this to is a contridiction to what TAD’s policy is. Also, has any person been allowed to see the proof that they violated TAD’s policy? Also, employees have been told that they can have another employee look at their case, if they were on break. So, the employee is on break, goes to a coworker and requests that their case be pulled up. So, now the co-worker and the employee can be accused of violating TAD’s policy, because how do you proof that you were on break? Again, neither employee is allowed to see the evidence against them. The next question is, is the County interpreting the reports correctly. They had a problem, in regards to an employee that was accused of Inter-Net abuse. That person obtained the printouts and was able to prove that the County was considerably wrong in the amount of time that the employee was actually on the Inter-Net.
Then one has to ask the question: Say an employee rents out rooms, they have 2 different families. Each of those families apply for Food Stamps. Each of these families are required to list ALL people living in the house. So that employee would be associated to 2 cases. If, they have rented to other families, they could be associated to even more cases. Now, lets say that one of the families forges a rent verification that indicates they are paying $500, for rent, when in reality it is $200. That employee is associated to a case where the applicant is committing fraud. See, a problem here? The employee Could be investigated for fraud and questioned as to why they are associated to multiple cases.
From what I understand, employees are accused of violating Personal Private Information (PII). Yet if that employee is looking at their own case, how did they violate their PII? Their personal information was provided by themselve. Also, employees are being let go because they did this 4 years ago. I don’t believe that PII came to being until about 2 years ago.
Next lets look at all of the ways that TAD is violating their own policies. All case information is supposed to locked up at the end of the day,or when the worker has left their desk. In TAD 01 manegement actually checks the employee’s drawers to see if they are locked, when the employee is not at their desks. In most of the offices there are no locking drawers. TAD offices are required to have certain notices at all of the FAX machines, are they there? Highly doubtful. Also, when QRC reports are published, they contain both the case number and the client’s name. They also, contain information regrding the errors of the case and if it was the applicant’s fault or County error. PII, states that you can’t used more then 1 identifing case element. When yoy go to the pharmacy, you have to stand behind a line, until the person at the counter is done. This is part of the PII rules. Yet in the lobbies, worker’s call out people’s first and last name. Now everyone knows who that person is, notice another problem? I am sure there are more examples, but they are at the mangement level and it seems that those County Employees are untouchable.
Until the County and TAD can produce rules and policies that are adhered to through out the County and they are uniformaly enforced, I don’t understand how this latest tatic is ethical, let alone legal.
That is not what/how C-IV was meant to be used for. Remember, in TAD, the key word is CONFIDENTALITY….in the true sense of the law, they are breaching confidentality in these actions.
I cannot say to sue or not, it’s not my job / income being affected but staying quiet will only encourage it to continue.
What about talking to County Counsel? I think gathering documentation to prove your case and talking to the Grand Jury is another possibly but like some of you have said, you may need a lawyer with this type of experience…not just any lawyer. But key will be is to gather enough people and documentation to have a strong case to get someone’s attention.
This is wrong and truly sad to hear, the majority of the staff at TAD are hard working people, dealing with extremely complex regulations, and providing a valuable service to this community. My heart breaks to hear what is happening to the department.
absolutely go to the grand jury…….
Well you shouldnt be gaining personal information by looking in cases period. You should be minding your own business. You are there to work and not look at you or a family members cases. PERIOD. So you got caught, now deal with it!
And the same goes for TAD administration. I personally am living for the day Nancy and Michael are led away in handcuffs. It will happen.