From The Chicago Sun-Times:

Ghost payrolling probe targets O'Hare

June 14, 2002

BY FRAN SPIELMAN CITY HALL REPORTER

Plumbers assigned to repair sinks, toilets and sewer lines at O'Hare Airport could be in hot water after an undercover investigation of alleged ghost payrolling, City Hall sources said Thursday.

Inspector General Alexander Vroustouris is wrapping up a marathon surveillance of the O'Hare plumbers at a time when Mayor Daley is struggling to close an $80 million budget gap without layoffs or tax increases.

Although O'Hare plumbers are not paid out of the city's financially strapped corporate fund, yet another ghost payrolling scandal would be an embarrassment amid drastic belt-tightening measures.

Earlier this week, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Daley was cracking the whip on police overtime, in a move that union leaders and police brass claim could slow response times and make it more difficult to solve homicide cases in the murder capital of the nation.

On Thursday, Aviation Department spokeswoman Monique Bond confirmed that the 16 plumbers assigned to O'Hare were under scrutiny, but she declined to comment on the "active, ongoing" investigation. Vroustouris also declined to comment.

Over the years, Chicago aldermen and union leaders have accused the inspector general of using "Gestapo tactics" to investigate ghost payrolling in the Sewer Department, the city clerk's office and the Department of Streets and Sanitation.

The 1991 scandal that implicated 37 employees assigned to the 1st Ward sanitation office remains the biggest ghost payrolling scandal uncovered by Vroustouris. They were accused of defrauding the city of at least $500,000 by devoting an average of just two hours a day to their jobs while moonlighting, going to the racetrack and, in one case, committing a robbery.

In August 1993, a foreman at the infamous 1st Ward sanitation yard was accused of falsifying time sheets to obtain overtime for hours actually spent chauffeuring reputed mob boss Joey "the Clown" Lombardo.

Last year, the inspector general embarrassed City Clerk James Laski, a mayoral appointee-turned-nemesis, by recommending three firings, three suspensions and a demotion of clerk's office employees. The workers were accused of playing golf with Laski and performing personal errands on city time and of falsifying time sheets to cover it up.