Commissioners want time to study Sheriff’s Office forensic audit

The Burnet County Commissioners Court wants more time to analyze the results of a forensic audit of the Sheriff’s Office that looked into alleged timesheet tampering over the last four years. County Judge James Oakley presented the audit results on Tuesday, Aug. 13, after 11 months of waiting.

The court ordered the audit in September 2023 after anonymous “whistleblowers” claimed the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office was paying certain employees overtime hours that were never worked. Third-party accounting firm Baker Tilly received $20,000 to conduct the audit. 

The 15-page report highlighted 957 instances of timesheet labeling using the “FTO” and “CTO” distinctions, referring to “field training officer” and “communications training officer,” respectively. The jobs involve training incoming officers and often accrue overtime.

Oakley and county Human Resources Director Shirley Bullard asserted that these instances of FTO and CTO labeling could represent overtime pay for hours that were never worked. 

Sheriff Calvin Boyd has consistently stuck by his statement that all of the hours in question were worked and the labeling was used in an effort to track how much the Sheriff’s Office was spending on overtime for training officers. Boyd’s position is backed up by District Attorney Wiley “Sonny” McAfee, who conducted his own investigation and determined no criminal wrongdoing by the Sheriff’s Office.

After Oakley’s presentation, commissioners unanimously tabled the matter for discussion at a future date. Commissioners Damon Beierle and Joe Don Dockery each said they had never seen the report and wanted more time to process the information.

“I think this needs to go to another court,” Beierle said. “There’s no way we can take action on this. I’m not taking any action on this today.”

Discussion and/or action on the audit might take place at the next scheduled Commissioners Court meeting at 9 a.m. Aug. 27 at the Burnet County Courthouse, 220 S. Pierce St. in Burnet. Depending on the court’s decision, the matter could lead to further investigation, reporting to a state agency, or being dropped altogether.

Oakley told DailyTrib.com after the meeting that he understands the court’s decision to table the audit discussion, but he sees merit to the accusations.

“Based on the findings of what the Human Resources department discovered, and reinforced by the more comprehensive look by Baker Tilly, I do believe there are some discrepancies and basis to the allegations,” he said.

Oakley was referring to the research of former Human Resources Director Sara Ann Luther, who resigned amid nepotism allegations in October 2023, and current Human Resources Director Bullard, who spoke during Tuesday’s meeting.

“I came in at the back end of everything (with the audit) and was in on the phone conversations with Baker Tilly and looked at some of the (draft audits) and formed my own opinion about what was going on,” Bullard told the court. “Everything that I saw showed that the Sheriff’s Office was giving premium pay to some employees. They were being paid an hour of time and a half on numerous occasions for numerous employees.”
Boyd confronted Oakley during the Tuesday meeting, saying it was “inappropriate” to spring the audit results on everyone.

“I appreciate the way you did this, keeping it all to yourself and then putting it all in front of this audience,” he told Oakley. “We’ve wasted $20,000 and all these man-hours on an investigation that says we’re not guilty of anything criminal.”

Boyd told DailyTrib.com that his office did label certain overtime hours as FTO or CTO hours, but it was done to track overtime for officer training hours. He claimed all hours were worked, regardless of labeling.

“We wanted to track (FTO and CTO overtime) to see what it was costing us,” he said. “(The FTOs and CTOs) worked the hours.”

District Attorney McAfee confirmed to DailyTrib.com that his office investigated the accusations against the Sheriff’s Office.

“I found that there was no illegal conduct by the Sheriff’s Office,” he said.

McAfee did say he found one former employee who had submitted vouchers for time they had not worked, which he said appeared to be an isolated incident.

dakota@thepicayune.com