Good afternoon, Chicago.
For nearly five years, the Chicago Transit Authority paid a small group of employees to stay home and not work at least two days a week, a state watchdog found.
The employees in question worked in the agency’s “vault operations” unit, which is responsible for processing money taken from CTA fareboxes. Those workers could not actually perform any of their assigned duties from home, but were nevertheless assigned to work remotely at least two days a week since the beginning of the pandemic, continuing to do so even after the agency-wide return to office date in May 2022, according to a report from the Office of Executive Inspector General.
A total of 10 employees were paid just under $1.13 million for days they spent not working since the start of the pandemic, the OEIG found.
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