According to an investigation by the Ohio Inspector General’s Office, Ohio Lieutenant Governor Mary Taylor was notified by the Ohio Department of Administrative Services of a public records request made regarding members of her staff: Laura Johnson, chief of staff, and Heather Brandt, administrative assistant to Johnson and Taylor.
On Friday, Nov. 27, Taylor said her office has made some changes and is requiring supervisor approval for employee time sheets.
The records requested were covering the time period from Jan. 1, 2014 to April 29, 2014. Among other items, the request asked for payroll records and records showing times in and out of any state parking garage for which ODAS maintains logs.
During the legal review of the requested records, it was noted that for both Johnson and Brandt, the total amount of hours their respective cars were recorded as being in the Riffe Tower parking garage was significantly less than the total amount of hours that each of them recorded as having worked during the same time period.
Brandt resigned her position on June 4, 2014. Johnson resigned her position on June 5, 2014.
On Sept. 9, 2015, the Office of the Ohio Inspector General met with representatives of the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office and the Columbus City Attorney’s Office, Prosecuting Division, where the prosecutors determined there was insufficient evidence to pursue a criminal case.
The Office of the Inspector General made the following recommendations and asks the lieutenant governor to respond within 60 days with a plan detailing how the recommendations will be implemented.
The Ohio Lieutenant Governor’s Office should:
1. Provide job position descriptions for the position of chief of staff and assistant to the chief of staff.
2. Comply with Ohio Department of Administrative Services and Ohio Department of Insurance policies in requiring supervisor approval of all time sheets. 
3. Make it clear to Ohio Department of Insurance employees who work in the Lieutenant Governor’s Office that they must follow Ohio Department of Insurance policy, including time and attendance policy and teleworking policy.
4. Consider funding the payment of employees who work in the Lieutenant Governor’s Office from a lieutenant governor’s budget and establish a Lieutenant Governor’s Office policy.
The Inspector General’s report http://watchdog.ohio.gov/Portals/0/pdf/investigations/2014-CA00043.pdf states:
On June 16, 2014, the Office of the Ohio Inspector General interviewed Paula Farrell, who from Jan. 10, 2011 to Dec. 29, 2013, was the executive assistant to Lieutenant Governor Taylor. Farrell said employees in the Lieutenant Governor’s Office would start their day between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. and then end their day whenever the workload permitted. Lieutenant Governor’s Office employees would then flex their schedule to meet the required 40-hour work week.
Concerning Brandt’s work attendance, Farrell said the alleged falsification of time sheets had been going on for a long time and she brought it to Johnson’s attention in an email on June 9, 2013. Farrell said Johnson met with her the following day to go over her concerns expressed in the email, and Johnson said, “I’ll get back to you,” but Farrell told investigators, “she [Johnson] never spoke to me again about it.”
Farrell said around January 2013 it was her duty to approve the time sheets of the lieutenant governor’s employees. Farrell said after questioning Johnson about Brandt’s entries on her timesheet, Johnson and Brandt’s time sheets were removed from Farrell’s view for approval.
In reviewing payroll records, Johnson was listed as the approver on Brandt’s timesheet and Brandt was listed as the approver on Johnson’s timesheet. Farrell said she talked to Sharon Maynard, the lieutenant governor’s scheduler about this issue, but never mentioned it to Taylor.
On June 16, 2014, the Office of the Ohio Inspector General contacted Susan Verble, former deputy chief of staff for the lieutenant governor, to arrange a date and time to be interviewed. Verble resigned her position effective June 14, 2014, and said she would like to think about whether or not she would make herself available to be interviewed. Verble called the Office of the Ohio Inspector General the following day to decline to be interviewed. On June 17, 2014, the Office of the Ohio Inspector General interviewed Jenna Mann, the former assistant communications director for the Lieutenant Governor’s Office. Mann resigned from the position on April 27, 2014. Her duties included writing press releases or talking points, working with the media and taking pictures at some of the events attended by the lieutenant governor.
Mann stated her assigned work hours were 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. but that she was permitted to flex her schedule. Mann explained flextime as, “... if we got our 40 hours in the week ... --- uh if I came in at 9 and then left at 5:30 it’d still be okay as long as I got my 40 hours in in the one week.” Mann added the flexing of her schedule did not require approval by a supervisor.
Mann was asked to whom she submitted her timesheet for approval. Mann stated, ... My direct supervisor was the Communication Director, so Chris Brock. And then before him, Stephanie Owen. Um when Stephanie was the Communications Director, Paula Farrell, the Executive Assistant at the time to the Lieutenant Governor would approve everyone’s time sheets on the 30th Floor. Uh and I --- well, I think she did. I know that she approved mine and would approve my leave or overtime requests.
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Mann was asked if she signed her time sheets.
She responded:
... The first part that --- when I was working there it was all --- well, we would type it in Excel and print it and sign it. And then um later on we switched to an electronic virtual machine where we would just record it and then we would submit it for approval, so we didn’t actually physically sign it.
Mann was asked if she knew who approved Johnson’s or Brandt’s timesheets. She said, “... Um Laura and Heather’s timesheets were done through um Heather for most of the time and I believe at times Paula ... had approved them, but I’m not, not sure.” When asked about working from home, Mann said, ... I would work from home in the mornings for about an hour. I did the daily clips which is I would read all the newspapers and compile news clips that I thought that she should read --- the Lieutenant Governor and the staff, or if she was mentioned in them. And I started doing that in the office and the computer systems would continuously crash so Laura Johnson gave me permission to do it at home because it was easier on my computer than... to do it at the office. Mann added, ... I would just log into that e-mail, webpage, whatever you’d call it and I would type in my credentials and I could see my e-mail and that’s where I would compile the clips into an e-mail message and then e-mail them out. Mann said she used her personal computer when working from her home and did not remember if she had documented authorization to telework from home. On June 19, 2014, the Office of the Ohio Inspector General interviewed Sharon Maynard, the scheduler for the Lieutenant Governor’s Office. Maynard said she did not have assigned work hours, but a flex 40-hour work week. As the scheduler, Maynard had access to the calendars of both Mary Taylor and Laura Johnson. According to Maynard, Farrell would approve Johnson and Brandt’s time sheets when they first started working for the lieutenant governor, but when Farrell complained to Johnson about Brandt not being at work, Johnson took that duty away from Farrell. Maynard said Brandt would approve Johnson’s timesheet and Brandt would also approve her own time sheet, acting as Johnson.
Maynard explained Brandt would create her own time sheet and would submit it for approval to Johnson. Brandt would proceed to sign herself out of the computer system. Brandt would then sign herself back in to the computer as Johnson, and approve her own timesheet. Maynard said Brandt told her this was the process used.
Maynard also said Johnson’s office telephone was always forwarded to Brandt.
Maynard confirmed Johnson was not in the office often during the hours she claimed to be working. When asked where Johnson was during periods she was not in the office but was claiming work hours, Maynard said, “... sometimes I knew what she was doing and it was not work related ... She would get her hair done. She would get her nails done.”
When asked how she knew this, Maynard said that the hair and nail appointments were on Johnson’s calendar. Maynard was shown a printout of Johnson’s calendar, and she explained that anything marked as “BP” stood for blocked personal. “BP Lee” meant a nail appointment because the nail technician’s name was Lee. Maynard added she knew when Johnson had her hair done because Johnson would leave the office with straight hair and would come back to the office with curled hair. Maynard was asked if she told anyone about Johnson and Brandt not being in the office during hours they were claiming work hours.
Maynard said she told Johnson about Brandt being frequently out of the office. Maynard told Johnson, “I told her that this was --- that it was a problem. That her, her duties --- she doesn’t have duties that re --- that could be done outside of the office.” Maynard continued, saying she went on to tell Johnson, ... you need to fix this... because we’re going to get in trouble over it. And that’s what I would tell her... time and time again. And she would tell me stop talking, you’re scaring me... on a number of occasions. Or she would just say, you know, it’s --- don’t worry about it.
Maynard noted she did not say anything to Johnson about her (Johnson) not being in the office. Maynard stated that, on January 29, 2014, she talked to the lieutenant governor about Brandt and the ... specific times that I knew that Heather was claiming um to be working when Heather, herself, told me otherwise. Um... and just... just the --- the practice was wrong. Her working from home. She did not have duties... that could be done from home. She didn’t have duties to justify working from home. Maynard said the lieutenant governor’s response was that she would look into it and would discuss it with ODOI Deputy Director Jillian Froment and Human Resources Director Tynesia Dorsey.
Maynard was asked by investigators if anyone had authorization to work from home. Maynard said, “No. As I understand we have an as-needed work from home which is not just ‘cause you don’t want to come to work today, you work from home. It’s if there’s a circ*mstance.”
Maynard was asked if she told the lieutenant governor about Johnson’s claiming work hours when not in the office. Maynard said, “I did not specifically say hair and nails. I, I did not um... I didn’t have that specific conversation. I did have a conversation with the Lieutenant Governor that said, you know, Laura needs to turn herself around.” Maynard said this conversation occurred sometime in March 2014, and the lieutenant governor’s response was that she would talk to Johnson.
