REPORT: WORKERS AT GYM OR HOME ON COUNTY TIME.

Byline: Michael Gougis Staff Writer

Social workers in an elite unit assigned to care for some of Los Angeles County's most-troubled children spent their work hours jogging at the gym, running errands and even going to a movie theater, a confidential report obtained Wednesday says.

The report details an 11-day undercover investigation of employees in the Start Taking Action Responsibly Today program, or START, launched in the mid-1990s to help the county's neediest children who are court dependents.

As a result of the probe, officials from the Department of Children and Family Services have called for firing three social workers and creating a task force to determine whether troubled youths actually are being helped.

``The workers were clearly off the job and on the clock,'' John Oppenheim, DCFS chief deputy director, said in an interview.

Longtime critics of the department seized on the report as further evidence of the county's failure to look after children in its care.

``The fraud in the department is shocking, particularly because START is aimed at the children with the most significant problems,'' said Amy Pellman, legal director for the Los Angeles-based Alliance for Children's Rights.

A multidepartmental program, START has 39 employees - 27 from the Department of Children and Family Services, three from the county Probation Department and nine from the Department of Mental Health. They serve nearly 100 children whose problems range from criminal activity and violent behavior to drug abuse and mental illness.

At a time when other county social workers are swamped under caseloads of 30 children or more, those in the START unit handle a maximum of 10 cases at a time to let them give more attention to each child.

The undercover investigation was prompted by a tip on the county's Fraud Hotline that three employees in START's Pasadena office were engaged in ``work-hour abuse.''

Investigators from the Auditor-Controller's Special Investigations Unit tailed the three employees during work hours and found that one brought her child to school and then spent 90 minutes at a gym while supposedly on the job.

A second employee started his workday by visiting a gym. He then went back home until he left at 1:15 p.m. to visit a Pasadena high school for 35 minutes. Just before 3 p.m., he drove to a movie theater in Upland, according to investigators.

``Mr. B worked on county business for no more than one hour, but reported nine hours worked,'' the investigators' report states.

The third employee was assigned to work nine-hour days, but did so only once in the four days he was tailed. He worked as few as three hours one day and usually arrived home by 3:30 p.m., although his shift was supposed to end at 6 p.m., investigators said.

Workers in START's Pasadena office also carried an average caseload of only four children, investigators found.

Sources said START workers had made it so difficult to qualify a child for the program that many caseworkers outside the program had given up on referring children to it.

Oppenheim said it is clear the program needs to be re-evaluated.

``There is a necessity to do some modifications,'' he said. ``But at its core I think it has merit.''

Michael Gougis, [phone]

michael.gougis(at)dailynews.com