by Jon Styf
A former Knox County Governmental Library employee was paid more than $100,000 for work time she did not complete while more than $40,000 worth of additional compensation is being questioned over a 10-year span.
Ashley Satterfield was indicted on a charge of official misconduct and theft of over $60,000 before resigning her position on Jan. 27.
A Tennessee Comptroller’s Office investigation showed Satterfield was paid at least $108,444 for work she did not do.
“Satterfield admitted to investigators that she did not perform work on the days in question but still received compensation,” the Comptroller’s Office report said. “The failure to promptly detect this unearned compensation was the result of a lack of internal controls and proper management oversight.”
Satterfield was a librarian who was hired as a non-exempt hourly employee on Oct. 6, 2014. Records show she did not complete timesheets nor did she document sick or vacation time. In July 2022, she was paid for a full month’s work but she only clocked in for one hour of work on July 18, 2022.
Satterfield did not have permission to work remotely but she claimed to have worked from home, “specifically on days her identification badge entry/exit records show she was physically present at the library for less than a full workday,” the report said.
Those days accounted for her additional $40,000 in questioned compensation.
Satterfield ultimately resigned after Knox County officials met with her about her absence from the library during work hours.
The library commission was cited in the report for failing to properly manage and oversee Satterfield’s work, failing to require pre-numbered receipts for library collections and failure to ensure that the library was collecting annual fees for access to library records.
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Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter of The Center Square who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies.
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LOL
Government employees getting paid for not actually showing up for work? Sounds much like our elected officials. The only difference is cost to the public is certainly lower. If you like this story, the one about the taxpayer funded non profit book keeper who fleeced Knox County should make for fine reading. They even had an audit.