Houston councilwoman Brown altered employees' timecards

Helena Brown Helena Brown Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Houston councilwoman Brown altered employees' timecards 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Houston City Councilwoman Helena Brown subtracted hours from employees' timecards in apparent violation of federal law, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

The first-term councilwoman shorted an employee by more than three hours in a day in several cases. At least six times, Brown deleted enough hours from employees' reported workweeks that it cost them overtime by bringing their weekly total under 40 hours.

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act requires overtime pay and accurate record keeping. City policy prohibits supervisors from changing employees' timecards except to correct errors. A spokeswoman for the Harris County district attorney said the office does not confirm the existence of investigations but said the Public Integrity Unit would handle a complaint if one were filed. Charges that could result from the circumstances described by the Chronicle could include tampering with a government document, a felony, she said.

Brown's staff at one time included five 39-hour-per-week employees classified as part-timers. Many of Brown's changes to the times reported by her employees appear to shorten or lengthen their workweeks to exactly 39 hours.

Brown declined repeated requests for comment.

Former chief of staff

The councilwoman deducted hours from the times recorded by former chief of staff Leticia Ablaza dozens of times in March and April, according to records the Chronicle obtained through a Texas Public Information Act request.

"Clearly, she went and altered (records), but, again, that was kind of forced, if you will," said Ablaza, one of the 39-hour employees.

Forced, she said, because it was Ablaza's understanding that she would have to accept city-subsidized health benefits if she worked 40 hours a week and became classified as a full-time employee. Ablaza said she did not complain about the timecard changes because she wanted to avoid qualifying for benefits, saying she would have considered it stealing to accept them when she already had health insurance through her spouse.

"We just chalked up the extra hours to volunteer hours," Ablaza said.

City Attorney David Feldman said full-time employees can decline the city's health insurance.

Feldman ordered a review of the timekeeping records for Brown's office and said he found only one or two FLSA overtime violations.

"My understanding is that the hours were changed in accordance with the council member's understanding of the number of hours that the employee worked in a given day," he said.

The Chronicle found three weeks in which Ablaza's hours were reduced to below 40 hours and three when former chief deputy director Rasuali Bray had overtime hours erased.In numerous instances, Brown went back more than 10 days to change her employees' punch-in or punch-out times. In repeated cases, the changes adjusted an employee's workweek to exactly 39 hours.

Don Pagel, who as deputy director of the city's Administration & Regulatory Affairs Department is the city's top timekeeping official, did not comment on whether Brown's alterations were accurate, but he said inaccurately adding or subtracting hours on a timecard is a crime. Shorting employees can run afoul of protections for employees under federal law, while padding a timecard is an illegal gift of public funds, he said.

"The employees' time punches are sacred. It's against the Fair Labor Standards Act guidelines for the supervisors to be changing those punches without specific documented approval from the employee - and certainly with any trend or frequency," Pagel said. "We counsel them (council members) they should never do it unless the employee requests it." Feldman said he neither asked for nor received such documented approval.

Feldman said that the net effect of the changes actually added time to employees' reported hours. The Chronicle found that to be true for four employees, but not for Ablaza and Bray.

Brown reduced Bray's reported work hours more than 10 times, the audit indicates.

Bray called the Chronicle's findings that Brown reduced his reported hours "astonishing," but added, "I'm not going to say yes or no" as to whether he believed she had improperly altered his timekeeping records.

Even if Ablaza's hours were changed, Feldman said, she could not have been shorted pay because, legally, she was a salaried political appointee, meaning changes in hours should not affect her paycheck.

City payroll records, however, show that Ablaza was paid for fewer than 39 hours per week on at least one occasion and recorded overtime hours at least once before her resignation in April.

Federal violation

Local labor attorney Rex Burch said employees cannot be shorted pay even if they consent to it.

"The employee cannot waive their rights to wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act," Burch said. "Deals between employers and their employees are almost inherently suspect."

Feldman said he did give Brown's office legal advice on how to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act. While he would not specify what that advice was, he said the general issue was with her 39-hour-per-week part-time employees. She has three. The difficulty of properly tracking their hours creates the potential for FLSA violations, Feldman said.

"She is still in the process of converting over the 39-hour employees to regular full-time employees," he said.

chris.moran@chron.com twitter.com/ChronChris