MILWAUKEE — An honor system.
That’s how the City Attorney’s Office operates in terms of filing timecards, according to Tearman Spencer.
However, that system is being called into question by a 57-page report filed by the City’s Inspector General, Ronda Kohlheim. Her report says Deputy City Attorney Odalo Ohiku was working for his private law firm on city hours, collecting $5,766.64 over the course of 11 days between 2020 and 2023.
City Attorney’s Office by TMJ4 News
“As far as reporting time and hours, it’s a self-reporting system,” Spencer said. “Every individual does his own, they deal with the payroll people, they deal with the bookkeeper, etc. I don’t have that monitored. We have an HR Department to take care of that. I have to take you for your word when you tell me you have made that adjustment and it’s taken care of.”
Ohiku’s attorney, Nate Cade, calls these allegations ludicrous. Cade says Ohiku was never interviewed by Kohlheim for this investigation. Also, he says the report does not take into account time Ohiku was working for the city outside of normal business hours.
“You mean to tell me, the IG never asked to confirm whether [Ohiku] had hours that he worked before normal work hours, after normal work hours on even on weekends?” Cade said. “He could put in five hours on the weekend, the report doesn’t account for that.”
Spencer believes the attorneys in his office can be trusted to calculate their time appropriately. He also calls Ohiku a fine attorney, and very ethical.
“We’re talking, again, about professionals,” Spencer said. “Officers of the court. You would expect them to do certain things with honor and dignity. That’s the premise we move on.”
Spencer says his office is now doing its own internal investigation of what happened, so he wouldn’t speculate about how this happened. But he says the amount of money in question doesn’t appear to be worth the hassle to someone in a Deputy City Attorney Position.
According to the city budget, Ohiku collects a $133,000 annual salary.
“I can’t see how he can intentionally do anything for $5,000 over three years,” Spencer said. “Really? You know, I think if you’re going to see something like that, you will see a higher number and their frequency would be different. It wouldn’t be all in the period of time when he started.”
For Spencer, he was required to stop working his private practice when he was elected as City Attorney. The same rule does not apply for Deputy City Attorneys, though they are not allowed to be involved in any legal matter considered to be a conflict of interest with the City Attorney’s Office. Kohlheim’s report says Ohiku was given a year to reassign cases he was on, though there are several dates between 2020 and 2023 where he was working on four different cases.
“I don’t care if you have another office and another job during these hours,” Spencer said. “This is what you do and that should be your first priority. Period. I don’t begrudge anyone from trying to augment their incomes to take care of their families. I think that’s very important. However, what’s most paramount concern is when you take a job for the city and you swear to uphold this, that should be your first obligation.”
The issue of correctly clocking time worked could be a city-wide issue, according to Spencer.
“It’s not just this office,” Spencer said. “It’s indicative of the system here in the city, but ours will be changing. I personally don’t even know what the process is. I never put in the timecard and I’m finding out more and more people don’t put in timecards.”
Since this report came to light Wednesday, Spencer says he is looking more closely at how his office runs, about how time is reported, who reports it, and “the chain of custody of that information.”
The inspector general’s report will go before the Judiciary & Legislation Committee on Monday, Nov. 11. However, Cade says it will be in closed session, away from the public.
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