Portland police finance staff refused to seek reimbursement of $428,000 in expenses submitted by the bureau’s Sex Crimes Unit over concern the work didn’t meet terms of a federal grant intended to track hundreds of unanalyzed sex assault kits.

The staff tried for close to two years to get police supervisors to address the concern but got nowhere, the city Auditor’s Office found.

It took a tipster calling Portland’s Fraud Hotline in April 2019 to prompt action, according to Auditor Mary Hull Caballero.

The tipster reported that at least one employee but possibly more in the Sex Crimes Unit were doing non-grant work and submitting inaccurate time sheets.

Hull Caballero said she still isn’t sure whether the $428,138 incurred by the Sex Crimes Unit would qualify for federal reimbursement under the $1.2 million grant.

Her office referred the allegations to the Police Bureau’s Internal Affairs Division to investigate because they covered both sworn officers and non-sworn employees. The city’s Independent Police Review handled the part of the inquiry that dealt with higher-ranking officers, lieutenants and above.

No sworn police supervisors were disciplined after the police inquiry, according to police union officials.

The investigation did reveal that a grant-funded, civilian public safety aide working in the Sex Crimes Unit was doing her college homework on the job. She had been hired to put information on sexual assault kits and the associated investigations into a special database.

The inquiry also showed significant gaps in her use of the database on multiple days, sometimes as many as 7.9 hours in one day, although she was being paid for the full day of work from 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., expected to do case data entry.

Neither police supervisors nor the aide could explain the significant gaps in unaccounted time. She eventually resigned from the Police Bureau.

The inquiry showed a lack of supervision by police managers and their lackadaisical attitude in tracking hours worked by their employees.

In one case, for example, a grant-funded public safety aide’s hours recorded included time worked at the Portland Fire Bureau, which would not be covered under the grant and was a clear error, investigative reports show.

When the bureau’s grants analyst raised her concerns about inappropriate timekeeping and unauthorized work by grant-funded employees in the Sex Crimes Unit, a former bureau finance manager told her to “leave it alone,’’ reports show.

The analyst told investigators that she wasn’t comfortable submitting requests for federal reimbursement for work “that is not accurate or truthful.’’

The Police Bureau’s Uniform Daily Attendance Rosters are automatically generated with an employee’s name, shift and hours worked. If a supervisor doesn’t alter the so-called UDAR reports, then the full shift hours remain.

“The activity reports should reflect the actual time that the employees work, to include working late and adjusting future shifts,’’ the investigators wrote. "This investigation was unable to determine when they adjusted their shifts rather than submitting for overtime. This made it impossible to ensure that the grant funds were accurately applied. Going forward, I recommend that supervisors ensure that the UDAR reflects actual hours worked.’’

The inquiry also turned up allegations of “favoritism’’ in the Sex Crimes Unit, and an atmosphere where “communication wasn’t encouraged, that it was actually discouraged,’’ according to one person interviewed.

Deputy Chief Chris Davis described the public safety aide’s actions as "minor misconduct'' in a prepared statement and noted the aide no longer worked at the bureau. He said the investigation did show the need for improved timekeeping.

The Auditor’s Office looked at whether police managers were aware of the problem and why no one addressed it for so long.

“This is just a complete management breakdown,’’ Hull Caballero said. “Fiscal Services had been trying for two years to get someone to pay attention.’’

An investigator found that a grant-funded employee was doing personal business during her work grant-funded hours. "Had the initial concerns in the Fiscal Division and Detective Division been addressed and followed up with in 2017-2018, the issues may have been resolved before the concerns rose to the level of an Internal Affairs Investigation.''

Unfortunately, she said, no one in the Police Bureau’s Fiscal Services Division put their concerns to command staff in writing.

Portland police won the grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative to track the analysis and investigative follow-up for about 2,000 untested kits that were sent to a private lab for testing. The grant was to run from Oct. 1, 2015, through Sept. 30, 2018.

Under the 2015 grant, the bureau hired three victims advocates and three public safety aides. Money from the grant was intended to cover development and use of a special sexual assault kit management database, as well as training for police sex assault investigators, prosecutors and advocates who work with sex assault victims to stay current on national best practices on investigations and advocacy response.

In early 2017, the Police Bureau’s grants analyst received information that some employees assigned to the grant were doing work that wasn’t covered by the grant and weren’t working assigned hours.

The analyst reported the concerns to her boss, a business operations supervisor, and to his boss, the Police Bureau’s fiscal manager.

The analyst said she received no feedback on what to do next or whether her concerns would be addressed.

In February 2018, the analyst shared her concerns directly with the police commander overseeing the Sex Crimes Unit. He told her he understood the importance of the issue and would address it, according to the audit.

A lieutenant more directly in charge of the unit, though, dismissed concerns from the grants analyst, telling her that Fiscal Services needed to initiate an internal affairs investigation if they wanted the bureau to look into a report of grant improprieties.

The next month, the grant analyst said her boss told her to stop seeking reimbursement from the grant for the Sex Crimes Unit personnel expenses because of the questions raised.

“The Sex Crimes Unit command did not address the concerns in a way that assured the Fiscal Services Division that the Bureau could bill for reimbursement on the grant, ‘’ the Auditor’s Office found.

In April 2018, the analyst tried to tell the bureau’s assistant chief of investigations, then-Jami Resch, through a city human resources staffer working in the Police Bureau.

Resch, now police chief, told the Auditor’s Office she didn’t receive any reports about problems with the grant.

Resch did recall meeting with the city human resources staffer, who presented a list of issues, but she did not recall discussing problems with the grant expenses, the auditor’s report says.

“The Assistant Chief said that if she had heard concerns from the Fiscal Services Division about documenting work for a grant-funded employee, she would have understood the significance of the information and followed-up on it,’’ the auditor’s report said. “She said that she did not receive any reports about problems with the grant.’’

In April 2019, Davis, then an assistant chief and now the bureau’s deputy chief, said he also separately received a tip about the alleged grant improprieties. Davis said he immediately referred the case to internal affairs.

“This is deeply impactful to us as we always want to ensure that we are in compliance with our grants,’’ Davis said.

In a January written response to the auditor, Resch wrote that she shared the auditor’s concerns about what she termed the bureau’s “miscommunication over requesting grant reimbursement.’’

The bureau is now reviewing whether any of those expenses can now be reimbursed from the grant, Resch said. They had been covered through the Police Bureau’s budget and the city’s general fund.

“It is my hope the Police Bureau will recover a significant portion of the unbilled amount,’’ Resch wrote.

Hull Caballero said the bureau first must verify that the work done qualifies for reimbursement under the grant.

The bureau has created a Grants Management Review Committee to meet quarterly to review all grants and resolve any identified compliance issues. If the committee can’t resolve the problems, an assistant chief of the services branch will be notified. It also has adopted written guidelines for the control, review, and approval of grant-related billings.

When the fiscal staff stopped submitting packets for reimbursement on the grant, it appeared that no one in the sex crimes unit, the broader Detective Division or anyone in the chain of command, including the chief of police, was even made aware, according to the auditor.

(This story was updated at 4:35 p.m. on March 11, 2020)

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

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