The majority of the 22 employees are Transportation Authority police officers, who patrol state highways, tunnels, and bridges, and maintenance workers.
Members of Maryland's Office of Legislative Audits reported that the number of employees involved is understated, since many "improper accesses" to the Internet were not identified by an employee's name and because the investigation was limited to a 31-day period. Auditors found hundreds of instances of employees accessing pornographic Web sites in just a two-day period but could not immediately tie them to specific users.
Legislative auditor Bruce Myers says he's calling for a more complete investigation that will encompass a wider time span and will uncover which users are behind the anonymous logins.
"This was done during work hours so it was wasting taxpayer money," Myers says. "I'm not naive enough to think it doesn't happen. It does happen, but the extent it was going on was surprising. One person had 2,000 accesses between one and seven days."
He also said he was "disappointed" and "somewhat surprised" that police officers were involved.
The Office of Legislative Audits' report warns that employees viewing pornography at work creates a hostile work environment, wastes taxpayer money, reduces productivity, and even could infect the state's computer network with malware, which is frequently present on porn sites.
The Maryland Office of Legislative Audits investigated an anonymous tip that was made through the state's fraud hot line. The auditors went in and reviewed a 31-day period in fiscal 2006 as part of their investigation.
Myers says they found that six Maryland Aviation Administration (MAA) employees accessed inappropriate materials online between six and 600 times over periods ranging from two to eight days. They also found that another 16 Maryland Transportation Authority (MdTA) workers accessed inappropriate materials online between 17 and 2,200 times over periods ranging from one to seven days. The majority of these incidents happened during regular work hours, according to the report.
The MAA issued a statement that was attached to the auditor's report stating that executives took "immediate action to appropriately discipline" the six MAA employees who were caught. The statement does not specify what the discipline entailed, and Myers says it is a personnel matter so he could not discuss it.
The MAA also said it has begun developing an IT Awareness Training Program that's slated to be implemented by June 30. The agency also sent a letter to all MAA employees "reinforcing the importance of complying with MDOT e-mail and Internet policy," and said it's expanding the investigation.
The MdTA also issued a statement saying executives there took disciplinary action, including suspending Internet privileges, against the employees involved. The agency also says it's expanding the investigation and sending a letter to employees.
"If other employees are thinking about doing this, hopefully this will say something to them," says Myers. "They've got to be accountable to the citizens of Maryland."