FEMA INVESTIGATING CSUN'S USE OF QUAKE FUNDS.

Byline: Sharline Chiang Daily News Staff Writer

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is investigating whether CSUN improperly billed the federal government for overtime work never performed by earthquake-repair laborers, college officials said Wednesday.

California State University, Northridge, officials are cooperating with FEMA and conducting a separate investigation, questioning employees and inspecting payroll and billing records, CSUN spokesman John Chandler said.

``This is not being taken lightly,'' Chandler said.

The allegations were raised by former laborers involved in moving offices who told the Daily News in interviews that they were paid overtime as ``bonuses'' by their boss. The value of the alleged overbilling has not been estimated, Chandler said. Since the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, FEMA has reimbursed CSUN $240 million for temblor repairs.

Chandler said FEMA investigators contacted CSUN last week with allegations that members of an earthquake-repair crew moved office furniture for Louis Fair, the husband of CSUN President Blenda Wilson.

``I think we're coming to the understanding that, yes, members of the crew were involved in that move, but to what extent we're still trying to determine,'' Chandler said.

``Also, we don't know how the time was billed or if it was billed at all (to FEMA)'', he said.

Wilson is traveling in Africa and could not be reached for comment.

FEMA officials also would not speak about the issue.

``Our official policy is to neither confirm nor deny an investigation,'' said Gordon Tachuk, a special agent in the Oakland office of FEMA's inspector general.

This is the second FEMA-funding investigation to surface at CSUN. Two years ago, investigators probed allegations that a campus administrator supervising FEMA quake-recovery programs accepted free home construction work from employees of a FEMA-paid contractor that helped rebuild the campus. The investigation was inconclusive and the administrator left the school.

University officials have few answers about allegations of unearned overtime pay.

``I'm not sure we have a clear sense of the time frame being alleged,'' Chandler said. ``We're trying to (interview) as many on the move crew as we're able to.''

The movers were hired shortly after the campus was ravaged by the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, which left most of the campus buildings in shambles. The crew at one point grew to 28 workers as demolition, rebuilding and repair peaked. Now, with much of the work completed, there are 14 laborers on the crew, Chandler said.

The workers were hired by CSUN to work 40-hour weeks at about $12 an hour. Their wages were reimbursed from FEMA funds. The crews cleaned up around repair sites, and moved furniture, shelves and boxes out of earthquake-damaged buildings - and returned them when repairs were completed.

Former worker Desmond Cerceo, 31, of Northridge blew the whistle on the alleged fraudulent billings after he was laid off in April, when the workload dwindled.

Cerceo, who said he forwarded his complaints to a recorded FEMA hotline, told the Daily News that workers were used for a three-day job moving furniture out of Fair's downtown office in the fall of 1997.

Cerceo said he worked under lead supervisor Terri Sigrist for nearly two years, starting in June 1996.

``She would pay people for the weekend even though certain people wouldn't show up,'' Cerceo said.

``She was paying people left and right for not coming in.

``She thought she was doing everyone a favor,'' Cerceo said.

Sigrist said workers have always been paid only for the hours they work.

On the move for Fair, she said he called her sometime last year to see if some of the FEMA movers could help him during their off-duty hours. But he didn't identify himself as Blenda Wilson's husband.

``It wasn't like he called me for a favor. I didn't even know he was the president's husband. They don't have the same last name,'' Sigrist said.

She passed the word of extra work to her crew but never heard back if they took the job from Fair, she said.

Sigrist dismissed the allegations as gripes from a ``disgruntled employee.''

In April, Sigrist won a temporary restraining order against Cerceo.

On April 8, she reported that Cerceo became angry after being laid off, went into her office and verbally abused her, campus police Lt. Mike Sugar said.

Officers went to Cerceo's home to interrogate him, where they found university property - a table and chairs, Sugar said. Police later determined that Cerceo had permission to keep the furniture, which had been discarded by the school.

Another former employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that he took the unearned overtime, which he considered bonus money for working long, fully paid days.

``Say one week we have a big move and we busted out nine hours in one day, then she would give us Saturday (paid),'' said the worker.

``She's the supervisor and I was paid if it was on her,'' the worker said. ``To me, I was paid what I earned. I mean sometimes she gave me a break.''