INSIDE OKDHS - FEATURE STORY, JULY 2013: OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL

(MUSIC PLAYS)

No Audio: Tony Bryan - Inspector General, OKDHS. 

Tony Bryan: Like anything in life, there must be checks and balances. You must always have a division there that's going to be independent of all the other things that are going on in the agency to make sure all the "i"s are dotted and the "t"s are crossed. That's one of the most important things about our office. You know, when we go out and do an investigation, our job is not to find someone guilty of any crime or anything like that. Our job is to find out the truth. 

So, within the four divisions we have in OIG, our main focus is just to make sure that everyone is doing their job correctly. It's not so much to punish someone because they're not doing it correctly, but to say, "Okay, you're not doing this correctly. These are the things you need to work on. If you happen to be doing something wrong, okay, we need to correct it and let the powers that be know that these are the things you need to work on to correct it." I can go down the list of all four divisions, the different things they have to do, but the main thing their job is, is just to make sure there are checks and balances in what we do at DHS. 

No Audio: Rick Nelson McCoy - DHS Investigative Agent V

Rick Nelson McCoy: Basically the Inspector General's Office has been charged with overseeing the integrity of the programs at DHS. So, you know, we're not out there... you know, if we get a referral, we don't approach it from the angle that, "Okay, we got a referral so they must therefore be guilty." 

No, what we do is, is we approach it as, "Okay, we have these allegations. Now, can we substantiate these allegations or can we refute them?" 

Tony Bryan: On the investigative division side, when I first started, you had to have at least three years of caseworker experience to qualify at the entry level and come in as an investigator. Then, once I had been here a number of years, our previous Inspector General changed the qualifications where you had to have, pretty much, law enforcement experience. 

Well, me being a former caseworker, I knew how much easier it was for me to catch on to the policy and how to do certain types of welfare fraud investigations. So, when I became the Inspector General, I said that, you know, I looked at everything and I said, "You know what, we really need to give the caseworkers in the county office a better opportunity to come over to us." 

Rick Nelson McCoy: The difference is, is that a caseworker from the county level can almost hit the ground running here. Because, you know, what they do Monday through Friday is they interview clients. They determine their eligibility during those interviews, and then they take whatever is reported to them by the client, and then they confirm the employment, the residence. Everything that we do as a criminal investigator they basically do as a caseworker. So, we're excited when they come here because once they get here, they hit the ground, and they hit it running. 

Tony Bryan: Currently three of our last four employees that we've hired are former caseworkers. They're working out great. We had two who just graduated from the CLEET Academy, which most people refer to as the Police Academy in the state of Oklahoma, about a month ago. 

Right now, they've hit the ground running because one of the things about DHS which people need to understand is that when we work a fraud investigation, if that investigation goes back a couple of years, every time policy changed we have to apply policy for that particular timeframe. So, someone who has a casework background understands this a little bit more, and they know that, "Okay, this is what policy changed. This is why we have to apply this particular policy for this particular timeframe." 

And also, it makes a big difference because sometimes when policy changes they may have been eligible or they may not have been eligible. So, you have to be able to explain why they were eligible at this time, why they were ineligible, or why the overpayment is not as much as it was previously. So, someone who has a previous caseworker background, they understand this policy. So, they understand this is why certain things happen when you're working your investigation. 

No Audio: Cody Burns - Investigative Agent I, Office of Inspector General.

Cody Burns: I already had the policy knowledge. I already knew all the computer screens, you know, IMS and FACS. So, I knew what to look for, what an agent would be looking for, and also what a caseworker would look for. Most of the agents here don't know the policy that we have. You know, they rely on caseworkers to tell them that. So, I was already a caseworker. I know the policy from both the law enforcement point of view and from a caseworker point of view. 

No Audio: Michael Shinn - Investigative Agent I, Office of Inspector General.

Michael Shinn: I started out as a TANF worker, and then moved over to food stamps and did that for four years and saw the opening for OIG and had always been told that you had to have prior law enforcement to even be considered. But I thought, "What the heck?" because the only qualifications on the website at that time were at least three years of casework experience. So, I filled out the application, got the interview and ultimately got the job. 

Cody Burns: I graduated from CLEET, which is the Police Academy here in Oklahoma, it was in Ada, Oklahoma. I graduated on March 6th, 2013. I had to start there in November of 2012 so, it was quite a long process. There's a lot of law enforcement training obviously, a lot of laws that you have to learn. Then, we also had firearms training as well, driving, defensive tactics. We had to learn a lot of maneuvers. Just, you know, how to deal with someone you would be arresting and that kind of stuff. It was a very intense almost four months of my life, and I'm glad that it's over with now. But, it was fun. It was fun, but it was also intense. 

No Audio: Linsey Thomas - Investigative Agent I, Office of Inspector General.

Michael Shinn: We did have an additional agent, Linsey Thomas. She works out of the Tulsa office. She graduated from CLEET with me on May 10th, and she does the same job I do. She was a previous caseworker. I think she has ten years of experience, and she enjoys it. 

Rick Nelson McCoy: I'm excited about it, and most of the supervisors are and most of the agents are because you can't explain how beneficial the mix is where you've got county level workers coming in as agents, and then you've got seasoned criminal investigators and you mix the two for six months or a year, and then you've got a knowledgeable criminal investigator, and you've got a knowledgeable agent who has a knowledge of the policies and procedures of DHS but now they've got an extensive background in criminal investigation. So, the mixture is wonderful. 

Michael Shinn: Household composition and how we count income, those are all big questions when you're, you know, thinking to determine, do they owe us money back or did they intentionally commit fraud? So, having the knowledge of policy of who should and shouldn't be included in a household, what money is and isn't counted is a big, big help. 

Cody Burns: Unfortunately, there are going to be some people that are going to get on state benefits, and they're not going to be telling the truth, and that's why we're here. Obviously, we'd all love it if everyone told the truth 100% of the time and only people that needed benefits would come and apply. I really think that that's kind of my goal as an investigator. I want to help as many clients as possible, the people that are being honest and truthful to get as much benefits as they deserve, but on the other hand, if there's people out there that are being dishonest or trying to defraud the State of Oklahoma, I want to make sure they're not getting those benefits and give it to somebody else who deserves it. 

Michael Shinn: We get the allegation, whether it be "Man In the Home" or "Unreported Income," we gather our evidence, we call them in, and we confront them with it. We just have to be prepared for whatever their reaction may be, and we don't know what it might be. 

Tony Bryan: One of the things that's really important, the three people we just hired is their knowledge of DHS policy. Like I try to explain to people, your policy that you have in law - that's something that's going to be pretty much concrete. It's going to stay the same. There's a little tweaking with it. Whereas with DHS policy, it changes quite a bit, and every time policy changes you have to know how to apply it. 

Michael Shinn: For me, just in my few months here, this is the best job in DHS. It's the... you are still helping people even when you're pointing out what they did wrong because sometimes they don't know that they're doing it. And you are getting to the bottom of the truth, you're saving the state money. And you're a law enforcement officer. It's pretty cool. So, if you have interest in law enforcement, and you already work for DHS, then it's definitely the way to go. 

Tony Bryan: It's probably the best place to work, you know? I started off my career in the county office before I came over to the Office of the Inspector General. I mean, I loved being a caseworker when I was a caseworker, but this is really a great place to work. I wish more people would really consider applying for the jobs at DHS. There's more than just investigations. We have our Internal Audit and Quality Control and our Security Emergency Management Office. So, like I said, there's a lot of great opportunities here at OIG. So it's more than just investigations so, if anyone wants to come work for us, please apply.