CHICAGO — A city investigation into whether a water department worker lived in the city or in the suburbs included staking the worker out 13 times, interviewing neighbors, checking the location of debit card purchases and investigating the spouse's voting record.
The lengths of the city Inspector General's probe into whether the operating engineer was following the city's residency requirement were laid out in a report released Monday.
The Inspector General's office ultimately ruled the engineer improperly lived in the suburbs and lied about it for three years.
Alex Nitkin chats about the city worker whose residency issues did not cost him his job.
But that wasn't enough to dump the worker.
Despite the watchdog's recommendation to fire the employee, administrators within the Department of Water Management denied there was "sufficient evidence" to justify a termination, according to the report.
The exhaustive investigation found that the engineer and spouse had been living in suburban Hazel Crest with their kids while reporting a city address that really belonged to the worker's aunt, a former city worker who insisted the engineer lived there.
Investigators within the Inspector General's office released their findings based on the following revelations:
• They conducted 10 separate surveillance operations of the Hazel Crest home and three of the city property listed by the engineer. They ruled an elderly couple lived in the city house, not the engineer and his spouse.
• After looking through debit card transactions between 2013 and 2015, investigators found that 92 percent of all purchases were made in the suburbs, with the majority coming in Hazel Crest or the surrounding suburbs. Only 7 percent were made in Chicago, and most of those were near the engineer's workplace.
• During an interview, the engineer admitted to sending all their children to schools in Hazel Crest. "The Operating Engineer said the children lived in Hazel Crest because Chicago is not safe for children," the report said.
The employee slept in the Hazel Crest home every night of the week in which the interview took place, the report added.
• The engineer's spouse was registered to vote in Hazel Crest.
• Investigators spoke to multiple witnesses, and the aunt was the only one who corroborated the Chicago address. The aunt, "as a former City employee, was likely aware of the residency requirement," the report read.
Despite the findings, after consulting with the city's Department of Law, officials within the Department of Water Management said they "did not believe there was sufficient evidence to prove that the Operating Engineer’s actual domicile was in the suburbs," according to the Inspector General.
In their decision, officials noted that if they didn't clear the firing decision with the city's Human Resources Board, they would have to pay the employee overtime and back pay.
"Any hint of non-compliance in the future will be addressed immediately and the Department [of Water Management] will take all appropriate action," officials said, according to the report.
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