Legal News

Phila. OIG Reports Recovering & Saving $9.1 Mil. in 2010

By Brian Harris

By Amaris Elliott-Engel
Of the Legal Staff

Because of investigations that resulted in city employees being terminated, suspended, making restitution, paying fines or forfeiting their pensions, Philadelphia's Office of the Inspector General reported this week that the office was able to save city taxpayers, or recover on behalf of them, $9.1 million in 2010. 

The OIG is "the only entity in the city of Philadelphia that can do administrative investigations like this," said Inspector General Amy L. Kurland in a press conference. "While we have a great relationship with the District Attorney's Office, their focus, as it should be, is on crime."

The majority of complaints made to the office were made by city employees, according to the office's 2010 report released Thursday. "Most city employees are honest," Kurland said. "We're very proud that most of our complaints come from city employees."

The report also noted that no city employee has successfully appealed an OIG-recommended termination in the last three years, while the Civil Service Commission used to frequently reverse OIG-recommended terminations on appeal.

Kurland said that statement in the report was not a comment on Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, who was the city's first inspector general before Kurland. Williams would have had the same kind of results if he had worked for a mayor as supportive as Mayor Michael A. Nutter in providing the office the resources to conduct thorough investigations to procure airtight evidence, Kurland said.

Contact reporter Amaris Elliott-Engel at aelliott-engel@alm.com.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on March 18, 2011 (boomark / email).