City Of Sacramento Investigating Fire Department Employee For Possibly Double-Dipping

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - A city of Sacramento fraud investigation is underway in the fire department, with one employee accused of working multiple jobs simultaneously.

Now the city is implementing new rules to prevent double-dipping.

A new audit has uncovered what appears to be a city employee double-dipping by collecting a full-time paycheck while, at the same time, billing the city for his consulting company's services.

"The city code does not allow someone to be both an employee and a vendor, so that technically is illegal," said city auditor Jorge Oseguera.

The audit doesn't reveal the employee's name, but CBS13 has obtained signed city contracts showing it's John Hofman, the coach for the Sacramento Fire Department.

Hofman's full-time job is to oversee the department's fitness assessments and training for recruits and staff. He also runs another business, FirefighterFitnessOnline.com, which has billed the city for nearly $13,000 in services.

The audit found Hofman's fire department timecard showed he reported working a full week -- the same week he charged the police department for 38 hours of consulting work.

"And obviously that creates concerns regarding potential double-dipping of salaries and potential timecard fraud," said Oseguera.

The audit also discovered three additional weeks hofman appears to have double-dipped. The city says records show he was working for other agencies at the same time he was supposed to be on the clock in Sacramento.

"It raises the question of whether the individual is really fulfilling their purpose here for the city of Sacramento because it's very difficult to split your time given the amount of business this person was doing with outside entities," said Oseguera.

Based on e-mail activity, the city auditor estimates Hofman may have spent 25 percent of his time working on his outside consulting business.

"The city may not be getting its full service by this individual for what they've been hired to do," said Oseguera.

And the auditor recommends, in the future, that the city makes sure vendors are not employees before any contracts are awarded.

"For someone to be collecting a salary and a pension and not providing the public with the service the city is paying for I think is a disservice to the public," he said.

We reached out to Hofman for his comment, but he did not respond.

A fire department spokesperson says the investigation is ongoing. They refused to answer questions on camera.

As a result of this audit, a city spokesperson says the city will now monitor vendors quarterly to make sure they are not employees.