Two Wisconsin whistleblowers recall journeys from reporting to 'retaliation'
Suzanne Weber and Nicole Teasley were both state employees doing what they thought was right.
Each woman tried to save taxpayer money from being wasted within their respective agencies by calling attention to poor financial practices. However, instead of being rewarded for their efforts, each woman faced a litany of actions that they say punished them for speaking out.
When Teasley first offered to perform audits of her office’s payroll system around 2010, her bosses at the state Department of Health Service’s Milwaukee Enrollment Services lauded her initiative. MilES helps to connect Milwaukee residents with local government services. However, as she began to uncover what she believed to be systemic fraud and time theft within the MilES office, the attitudes of her supervisors changed, she says.
MilES is a hybrid organization that utilizes both state and county payroll systems, which Teasley discovered were not in effective communication with one another. She found that people would call in sick from work for medical or personal reasons, but that their timecards would not reflect this.
Read more: http://www.wisconsingazette.com/news/two-wisconsin-whistleblowers-recall-journeys-from-reporting-to-retaliation/article_02e9f62a-d921-11e7-add0-ebd38abd43ea.html