Employee terminated after being found guilty of falsification of her time and attendance records
Aiken v City of New York, 2012 NY Slip Op 00824, Appellate Division, First Department
The Appellate Division affirmed a post-hearing arbitration award finding that the employee was guilty of three of the specifications charged, and that the Department of Education (DOE) had just cause for terminating her from her position. The court said that the evidence supported the arbitrator's finding that the employee, whose duties included entering data into DOE computers reporting the hours worked by staff, had [1] entered hours in the system for herself in excess of the hours she was permitted to work, without authorization; [2] did not work those additional hours; and [3] following her reassignment, she improperly reentered the computer system and changed the fraudulent numbers.
The court said that although the employee denied any knowledge of the limit to hours she was permitted to work without approval, this claim was refuted by the testimony of the school principal, the employee’s union representative and a letter that the she had signed.
As to the penalty imposed, dismissal, the Appellate Division said that termination “was in accord with due process and was justified by [the employee’s] actions, particularly where [she] refused to accept any responsibility for her actions and asserted her innocence in the face of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary “
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