Employee Drug Tests Getting Closer Look as Troubles Multiply

When a recently hired payroll clerk at a Southern California firm arrived one morning driving a new Porsche, her employers ran an audit and discovered that she had been embezzling cash weekly.

At the Southern California Rapid Transit District, an employee was arrested when he tried to pawn photography equipment stolen from work.

Both employees were trying to support a drug habit. And as with most workers who steal, according to management and legal experts, their drug of choice was cocaine.

“Where you have people who safeguard property or cash, such as an office manager or a payroll clerk, and a drug habit is involved, we see a definite link between drug use and theft and embezzlement,” said Greg Kennedy, a Century City attorney who advises employers on how to spot drug use by employees at work.

Kennedy’s clients, including the cities of Santa Ana and Fountain Valley, are studying mandatory drug testing for all prospective employees and “post-incident” testing for anyone involved in a crime or an accident. The City of Lakewood, RTD and the Orange County Transit District already have begun such programs.

About half of Orange County’s 26 cities are seriously considering the issue, said Duane Munson, personnel director for the City of Newport Beach. Munson heads a county organization of municipal personnel directors. Several city officials have said the idea probably will be proposed at their next contract session with employee groups.

Drug testing has long been a volatile subject in the sports world, where baseball and basketball stars have found themselves the subjects of headlines after disappearing on drug binges or playing under the influence. But professional athletes aren’t a special breed, say many officials.

John Richeson, an RTD general manager who has overseen the bus company’s testing program since it began a year ago, said 30% of all applicants tested positive for some form of drug, usually cocaine. In addition, the agencies impose testing for employees if they are involved in a physical altercation with another employee or an accident causing major damage to agency property.

Drug tests by OCTD have been only 5% positive, said spokeswoman Joanne Curran. Fewer than 25 people have been fired during the last five years either because they tested positive for drugs or refused to take the test. “Four or five” were drivers, she said.

In response to America’s growing drug problem, public officials are following the lead of sports leaders and calling for systematic tests.

“There definitely is a trend,” Kennedy said. “And I cannot overemphasize that what has happened in the sports world, what you read about every day in the sports section, has had a major effect on the private sector.”

Cocaine for Vacation Pay

One firm, he said, was victimized by a drug-selling employee whom the company had sent to Kennedy’s seminar on how to spot workers skimming money for drugs. Soon after the seminar, company officials discovered that their ledgers showed vacation time claimed for employees who had been at work.

“This gentleman was actually cutting people’s vacation checks, then turning around and selling them rock cocaine,” he said.

In Santa Ana, city firefighters agreed in a recent contract to discuss testing in upcoming management-labor meetings.

Santa Ana City Manager Robert C. Bobb said he would like to see all city employee groups agree to some form of testing “within a year.” A major reason is the “horrendous liability” that cities face in accident cases, he said, but another reason is the employees’ own health.

“It’s not our intention to seek out employees who have drug problems and weed them out of the system. Rather we want to make the tests part of our employee assistance program,” he said.

Steve Critchfield, president of the Firemen’s Benevolent Assn., said he has no qualms about starting a testing program that would be a model for other city employees, although he said the department has no history of drug or alcohol abuse.

“It’s probably the wave of the future,” said Donald Blankenship, president of the Santa Ana Police Benevolent Assn. There has been no proposal made to test police officers.

Meanwhile, Costa Mesa officials plan to informally discuss the issue of drugs in the workplace on Tuesday, said personnel director William F. Todd.

Insurance Difficulties

Munson, Newport Beach’s personnel director, said the issue is doubly important as cities struggle to retain liability insurance.

“It’s important for us to show the insurance companies that we are taking steps to ensure that we aren’t hiring people who will be operating city equipment with impaired abilities,” he said.

The proposed testing, which would be confined to pre-employment and post-incident cases, would be most important for police, fire and maintenance employees, Munson said.

“In a burning house or a shoot-out, (a partner under the influence) could be risking your life,” Munson said. “And I think our associations might look at it that way if we were to bring it up during negotiations.”

Orange City Manager William Little said he discussed testing with the city’s personnel manager after the President’s Commission on Organized Crime issued a report last April. The commission recommended that President Reagan should direct the heads of all federal agencies to establish “suitable drug testing programs, expressing the utter unacceptability of drug abuse by federal employees.”

Little said the issue may come up when contract negotiations begin in 1987. The city has “had a few employees with sad drug problems, but the vast majority have no problems,” he said.

Since Lakewood began testing applicants last July, no one has tested positive, said city spokesman Don Waldie. In addition, supervisors are told to report anyone exhibiting signs of drug use, such as slurred speech or hyperactivity.

Lakewood Plan

Although no one has been reported yet, suspect employees would be told to report to a hospital across the street from City Hall and to submit to a urinalysis. Employees who refuse can be fired or suspended, Waldie said.

Lakewood will pay for a drug abuse or alcohol program for any employee who voluntarily comes forward to seek help, he said. Those people will be given vacation or sick leave while going through the treatment, Waldie added.

Both transit districts have similar policies for “post-incident” testing, although OCTD has no written policy on the issue, Curran said. She noted that stiffer policies are being discussed.

RTD employees are tested if they are involved in an accident causing more than $2,000 damage to district property, a physical altercation or “aberrant behavior.”

“Because we have drivers responsible for the safety of passengers and because of our liability, we are a little more sensitive than other agencies,” Richeson said. “So we felt it was necessary to take a more aggressive approach.”

Goldy Norton, a spokesman for the United Transportation Union, which represents bus drivers, said there is little opposition to the current system. However, drivers are wary of talk about periodic testing of employees.

Unions Caught in Middle

While union members don’t want to appear to support drug abuse, they also don’t want to give management the power to test employees indiscriminately and perhaps fire people who don’t use drugs or alcohol at work, but do on their own free time, Norton explained.

“The main problem we see is that the innocent may wind up suffering with the guilty,” he added.

Still, Norton agrees with attorney Kennedy’s statement that testing is a “growth” industry. “With all the reports of increased drug use, I think it’s something that our whole society is going to have to deal with, like it or not,” he said.