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Audit finds inconsistent use and weak tracking of paid administrative leave; HR agrees to implement recommendations
Summary
A performance audit found the City of Atlanta lacks consistent policies and Oracle coding for paid administrative leave, identified instances where leave lasted more than two years or was used for non‑investigation reasons, and recommended seven changes that HR agreed to implement.
A performance audit presented to the Finance and Executive Committee on May 14 found that the City of Atlanta’s use of paid administrative leave is inconsistently applied, unclearly documented in Oracle, and not tracked to distinguish investigative leave from other paid leave categories.
Tiija Farrar, the city performance auditor who led the review, told the committee the audit began after a referral from the Office of the Inspector General about an employee who had been on leave for over two years with limited documentation. Farrar said the audit examined whether paid administrative leave was used consistent with the city code definition: “a paid leave of absence pending an investigation authorized by the appointing authority with concurrence of the commissioner of human resources.”
The auditors reviewed Oracle transactions from fiscal 2014 through 2024 and found 1,563 administrative‑leave transactions for 1,276 employees. Farrar said that many transactions recorded as administrative leave were not clearly coded as leave pending the results of an investigation and that durations varied from one business day to over two years; the median time was 11 business days.
The audit found departments sometimes used paid administrative leave for workplace injuries, family leave, positive COVID‑19 tests, hardship requests, fitness‑for‑duty assessments, or while terminating a position — uses outside the narrowly defined city code purpose. Auditors also found inconsistent documentation in personnel files and noted that the Human Resources commissioner did not approve formal leave letters as required by city code.
Farrar said HR lacks formal, citywide policies and procedures to guide when and how administrative leave and related investigations should be used, documented and monitored. The audit recommended seven changes to the human resources commissioner; according to the presentation, the commissioner agreed with all seven recommendations.
A city HR representative told the committee the department reviewed the auditor’s recommendations and “agrees with them and look[s] forward to implementing those recommendations as soon as possible.” When a council member raised that some employees had been placed on paid administrative leave multiple times, the auditors noted that 18% of the population they reviewed had been on administrative leave two to five times during the 2014–2024 window, and the auditor suggested that pattern is consistent with use of administrative leave for reasons other than investigations.
Committee members requested follow‑up to clarify high‑frequency leave cases and asked HR to investigate any instances of repeated long leaves; the HR representative offered to review specific cases and report back to the committee. The committee accepted the audit report and moved it to the record.
