Klein: Audit APD's Human Robot's Time Sheets

- Who at APD has been approving Drobik's time sheets?

- Put APD's payroll and human resources functions under the city's HUman Resources Department

- Drobik working 100 hours each and every week, seven days a week?

- Do we need a sleep-deprived cop driving around town with a loaded gun?

APD's human robot, PIO Simon Drobik, needs to be audited. At least his payroll records and time sheets need to be. We need to find out who at APD has been signing off on what looks like an outrageous and impossible amount of overtime, even for our human robot.

The ABQReport revealed on Tuesday that Drobik has been paid $146,300 through the first nine months of this year. That's more than Police Chief Mike Geier has earned, and it means that Drobik is on pace to make $200,000 this year!

But Drobik is a patrol officer whose pay rate is $31.50 an hour. By our calculations he has had to work 60 hours of overtime each and every week of this year, seven days each week—no vacations, no sick days, no nothing. By our calculations it also means that Drobik has been working an astounding 100 hours a week, each and every week.

Do any of you really believe that Drobik has been working every single day of the year taking phone calls from TV reporters about the latest car crash and SWAT situation and running from crime scene to crime scene to give all those TV reporters the “sound” they so desperately need and crave?

Or is something like this going on? Drobik is at home at night and gets a call from a TV reporter about something. He takes five minutes or less to answer the question. Does he then bill the city, and us, the taxpayers, for an hour or two of overtime at $47.25 an hour for a five-minute call?

Why does Drobik have to be the on-call PIO at night when there are lieutenants who work all shifts? Why can't the TV reporters call communications and ask for the on-call lieutenants--who are working regular shifts, and not overtime--and get information from them?

Because here's what probably happens. When Drobik gets a call from a reporter at night about a crash or a crime, or whatever, he has to contact the on-call lieutenant to find out what's going on. Then he'd call the reporter back to tell him or her what the on-call lieutenant could have told them--all without charging us overtime.

APD's PIO, Gilbert Gallegos, said on Tuesday that Drobik is basically working two jobs; one as a patrol officer and the other as the department's “uniformed PIO.” It appears that Drobik's first job as a patrol cop is based on his hourly pay rate of $31.50, and that the PIO job is pure overtime.

Who knows?

But if Drobik has actually been working 100 hours a week each and every week, stay in your houses, lock the doors, shut the windows and don't come out, because that's incredibly dangerous. Police officers need rest to ensure that they make good decisions, and it seems Drobik gets little rest, putting him and us at risk of him making a poor decision due to lack of rest.

If somehow what Drobik has been billing the city for is legal, then something is wrong with how APD is managing our money.

Second, Mayor Tim Keller (who was State Auditor) should remove APD Personnel / Payroll duties out of APD and back across the street under City Human Resources. Audit after audit has shown APD is unable to manage it's own finances. From issues with return-to-work officers to the former APD sergeant who was just indicted on time card fraud, it clearly shows APD should not be in charge of its own payroll.

There is just to cozy of an atmosphere between APD Payroll and the APD rank and file. Move APD Payroll across the street to Human Resources. This way we have a true check and balance for finances at APD.

Former State Auditor and now Mayor Tim Keller, it's our money, protect it!