Allegations Regarding Timekeeping and Personnel Practices at Sandia National Laboratories
April 4, 2024
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April 1, 2024
Allegations Regarding Timekeeping and Personnel Practices at Sandia National Laboratories
The Office of Inspector General received allegations regarding inappropriate timekeeping and personnel practices at Sandia National Laboratories’ (SNL) Badge Office in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The allegations stated that a manager: (1) instructed employees to charge time to projects not worked; (2) encouraged and allowed unnecessary overtime; and (3) preferentially hired and converted an employee from limited term to full-time status.
We initiated this inspection to determine the facts and circumstances regarding alleged inappropriate timekeeping and personnel practices at SNL.
We substantiated the allegation that the former Personnel Security Department (PerSec) Manager at SNL instructed employees to charge time to a different project/task code than to the project/task code they worked. We also substantiated the allegation that the former PerSec Manager encouraged and allowed unnecessary overtime. We attributed these actions to two factors: (1) the former PerSec Manager interpreted upper management communication as pressure to address a budget underrun, while (2) the former PerSec Manager lacked appropriate budgetary knowledge and experience. We did not substantiate the allegation that the former PerSec Manager preferentially hired an employee and later preferentially converted that employee to a full-time position.
As a result of our inspection, we questioned $34,796 as unallowable for the costs associated with 330.5 overtime hours. Additionally, charging work hours to unrelated project/task codes impacts SNL’s ability to appropriately track costs and allocate resources. Lastly, charging work to unrelated projects and bypassing policy and contractual limitations undermines ethics and standards of conduct and has the potential to erode public confidence in the Department of Energy and its contractors. Furthermore, we identified a matter not associated with the initial allegations. We questioned $3,977 in costs that SNL retroactively paid for 39.5 hours of overtime to resolve claims without supporting documentation.
To address the issues identified in this report, we have made three recommendations that, if fully implemented, should help ensure that problems identified during our inspection are corrected.