Virtually every business suffers some type of isolated waste and efficiency issues. Successful businesses take steps and implement policies to mitigate and minimize waste for the purpose of prosperity. Most businesses routinely monitor and compile data to control overhead and expenditures. These types of controls are directly related to sustainability in the long run. If you were an investor in a business or corporation that continuously lost profits due to wasteful practices, you would most likely remove your investment and seek an alternative. The fact of the matter is that most of us are invested in businesses that routinely ignore waste. These businesses are commonly referred to as your municipality.

For many years in my own hometown of Warwick, I have monitored, documented, and been very vocal about waste and abuse that impacts the taxpayers slowly, but greatly over time. My documentation has been featured on numerous local news broadcasts and in many local publications. In government, state or local, there is always a “tolerable” amount of waste, but when the waste becomes so evident, when urban decay is so obvious, and when the waste and abuse become criminal, it is everyone’s responsibility to take steps to end it. However, there seems to be no change in the policies in place in Warwick which allow the waste and abuse to continue. In fact, it has now proliferated into what I feel premeditated criminal theft. So, at what point does municipal waste become theft that can be prosecuted and not just a personnel issue that the public cannot access. Here are some examples that I have documented, so you be the judge.

In Section 23.1 of the City of Warwick contract with Local 94 it specifies “rest periods” as (1) 15 minute rest period for each ½ day of work. Rhode Island state law indicates that employees are allowed (1) 30 minute lunch break within an eight hour shift. So, what does that mean exactly? Here is what has been documented in Warwick. I would like to know if the readers feel as the following activity is in accordance with the contractual language.

At 8:45 am DPW trucks stop work, travel to their favorite coffee house, donut shop etc., go in to get their snack, and then, parked in the lot, proceed to eat their food prior to driving the city vehicle back to where they were originally working. By the time that they are back engaged in their work it is 9:30 am at the earliest. Is this acceptable? Multiply that loss of time by in excess of 100 workers. Notwithstanding the fuel usage as these are large vehicles. This behavior has been documented on video dozens of times. Even more egregious, are the examples of men operating backhoes, leaving the work location with the backhoe, and driving across the city to the break location, then driving the machine back to the work location and consuming an hour or more of no productivity. Then at 11:30ish, leaving the work site with the backhoe and driving back to the city yard for lunch, leaving the city yard after 12:30 pm and driving the equipment back to the work location. I have an issue with such behavior and I have this activity documented on video.

Last week, I documented the latest egregious waste of taxpayer dollars. The workers are allowed a 15 minute break at 2pm. At 1:50 pm a DPW truck was noted to be hiding out behind the boys and girls club in Oakland Beach. The vehicle stayed on location until 2:30 pm then left the hiding spot and proceeded to drive all over the city performing no work, then returning to the city yard.

The following day another city truck was noted to be at a local restaurant on West Shore Rd. at 11:50 am. The truck and driver stayed on location until leaving at 12:37 pm. The truck then proceeded to drive 24 miles through the back roads of the city performing no work at all, and returning to the city yard to call it a day at 2:30 pm. This kind of activity takes place every day.

A few months ago, I filmed a worker in a dump truck at the boat ramp at Oakland Beach for three hours with the engine running having never left the vehicle. At 2 pm the truck left the area and drove to the Boys and Girls club, parked behind the building until 2:30 pm, then returned to the city yard. For three and a half hours the operator never exited the vehicle. Is this acceptable to anyone? Last week the DPW came before the city council asking for an additional $1.1 million for fuel. Hello??? Where are the tree huggers?

Although I have brought this information to members of the city council and to the mayor’s office for years, no action has been taken to change the behavior. In fact, Warwick has not even implemented GPS in the city vehicles so at no time can the work or the employees be tracked. Myself and others that have been watching this behavior, have even tracked workers leaving the confines of the city and going to their favorite “hide out” location in other neighboring towns.

During the 2015 budget hearings I vigorously questioned Mayor Avedisian and his department heads. My questioning primarily focused on the DPW and the Warwick Fire Dept. One of the questions that I posed to the mayor was “did he think that the city could operate more efficiently”. His answer was “this city is operating as lean and efficiently as possible.” The next day I followed DPW workers around for 8 hours.

These were workers that were supposed to be repairing potholes. For eight hours they never got out of the truck, (W32) even traveled outside the boundaries of the city, then at the end of the day dumped the asphalt in the garbage bin at the compost station having never repaired a single pothole. This activity was documented by myself and a local reporter every day for a week. No repercussions resulted in this behavior although it was brought to the attention of the administration.

So, here’s the question. When a municipal worker under a municipal contract knowingly and willingly takes extraordinary steps not to perform his or her duties, violates the terms of the contract daily, does this constitute theft that can be prosecuted? It certainly indicates that either the behavior is ignored by management, or we have an excess amount of employees and not enough work.

Either way you look at it, your investment into your community is not being managed appropriately. When you take specific steps to not do your work, does this constitute obtaining money under false pretenses? Look around and pay attention to your community. Is this happening where you live? If so, speak up and take steps to stop the waste and abuse. Bring it to the attention of the appropriate people. If no action is taken, then the best course of action is public humiliation. As evidence of the behavior that I have outlined, I have attached two short video links. Does anyone feel as this is acceptable?