Charge Upstate CSEA Official Moonlighted On Agency's Time

The state Inspector General Dec. 1 accused a former Civil Service Employees Association chapter president of stealing more than $30,000 in state pay while she abandoned her state duties to work for a private business.

Sara Bogart, 56, allegedly falsified her time sheets for about 1,344 hours at the Hudson Valley Developmental Disabilities Services Office of the State Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities in Thiells, N.Y., according to the Inspector General's report.

'Egregious' Abuse

"Such exploitation of state time is particularly egregious for someone whose job is to counsel and represent other state workers," Inspector General Joseph Fisch said in a statement.

The report was forwarded to the Rockland County District Attorney for possible prosecution for grand larceny in the third degree, offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree, both felonies, and official misconduct, a misdemeanor. The Inspector General also alerted the State Comptroller's Office, which could review the pension credits of Ms. Bogart, who earned $53,423 a year when she retired in 2007.

According to the report, Ms. Bogart took a job in 2002 as a private caregiver for Another Step, Inc. in New City. While moonlighting, Ms. Bogart allegedly falsified her state time sheets to claim she did work as CSEA chapter president, while she was leaving her state job in the middle of the day to go to Another Step, a privately owned, state-funded organization that provides services to people with developmental disabilities, the Inspector General charged.