Report: Former Austin Parks employee falsified timecards, received $11K in unearned wages

AUSTIN (KXAN) — A new investigative report released from the City of Austin's Office of the City Auditor found a former Parks and Recreation Department employee fraudulently collected $11,000 after falsifying time cards for six months.

Now-former PARD employee Desarae Ybarra submitted timesheets for hours she didn't work between June and December 2021, per the auditor report. She began working at PARD as an IT geospatial technician in March 2021 and "was responsible for updating tree inventory data across 300 public parks" in the city, per the report.

Joshua Erickson, an environmental conservation program manager at PARD, oversees planning and directing environmental conservation program strategies, while Kirsten Schneider is an environmental program coordinator and reports to Erickson.

Per the report, "Ybarra became Erickson's direct report due to management vacancies at PARD" in July 2021. Erickson designated Schneider to assist him in overseeing Ybarra's work and approving her timesheets.

During that timeframe, Erickson and Schneider approved Ybarra's timesheets "despite not checking to see if she was performing her job duties," the report found. Ybarra was approved for 40 hours a week across 20 timesheets, for a total of 352 regular hours approved. Her performance was also not discussed by Erickson or Schneider during the two's biweekly meetings.

"Desarae Ybarra committed fraud by submitting timesheets for six months claiming to have worked, despite not completing any work for PARD," the report stated. "She continued to send her signed timesheets via email to her supervisors for approval despite not performing her assigned job duty of logging tree data at City parks. In total, Ybarra was improperly paid nearly $11,000 during that time."

The reported stated the PARD Asset Management team contacted Ybarra on Dec. 21, 2021 after finding that her ARCGIS account had been inactive and would be demoted to a lower tier as a result. Ybarra was supposed to be using the ARCGIS account to log tree data, which Schneider said was Ybarra's only duty.

Ybarra responded to the PARD Asset Management team that she had been using her personal phone to log into ARCGIS to submit the data. Team staff said the entries would've shown regardless of whether she used her personal phone or the city-issued tablet.

On Dec. 28, 2021, Ybarra returned her city-issued iPad to PARD and resigned.

Both Erickson and Schneider were found to have "wasted City resources by approving timesheets for Ybarra despite her not working between July and December 2021," the report said. Both Erickson and Schenider had assumed the other were responsible for tracking Ybarra's performance.

The full report is available online.