The Sacramento City Auditor says employees in the city's Recycling and Solid Waste Division spend hours each week playing basketball, working out, or reading -when they're being paid to work.
Auditor Jorge Oseguera says an investigation found drivers commonly finished their routes early and stopped working.
"We made recommendations to the department to look into this issue and try to identify a way to more efficiently employ their solid-waste drivers so as to minimize the amount of down time that these individuals are being paid for."
He says it seems staffing levels were set in reaction to a previous audit. That audit found employees were working too much overtime.
Terrance Davis is the city's Integrated Solid Waste General Manager. He says the problem isn't too many employees, it's likely inefficient scheduling. He says the division will review its staffing and scheduling, but no one will lose a job.
"By in large, I think all of our programs are currently staffed appropriately and there shouldn't be any...there won't be any impacts in terms of staffing as a part of this assessment."
Davis says the city will study the problem for the rest of this year.
There are 125 drivers for 124,000 residential customers in the city of Sacramento.
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