Brandon Kaaa-Swain hasn’t been to work since October 2020, but the Honolulu prosecutor’s office investigator continues to collect a taxpayer-funded paycheck.
Put on paid administrative leave so officials could investigate his mileage reimbursements, Kaaa-Swain remains on leave nearly five years later, the prosecutor’s office confirmed last week.
Whether Kaaa-Swain is guilty of falsifying his expenses or not, a Civil Beat review found the county has now paid him at least $300,000 and counting while he’s been out — about 25 times the amount he is suspected of stealing.
The Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has provided no explanation for why it has paid an employee not to work for nearly five years. (Cory Lum/Civil Beat/2021)
Ted Hong, a Hilo-based employment lawyer, said the case makes him question the competence of the department’s supervisors and human resources professionals.
“Unless this involves some kind of major financial operation involving a cartel or something, it shouldn’t take that long,” he said. “It really is a disservice not only to the taxpayers but to all the other county employees who go by the book.”
It’s also not fair to the employee himself, Hong said, who has to endure a long running cloud of suspicion.
Kaaa-Swain did not respond to a request for comment.
Civil Beat first wrote about Kaaa-Swain last year in a report about a few hundred Hawaiʻi employees on extended periods of paid leave during misconduct investigations. Employees in agencies ranging from the Hawaiʻi Department of Education to the Department of Health have taken protracted absences from work pending investigations.
Union employees are protected from at-will firings, so investigations must validate misconduct allegations before disciplinary action is taken. However, government officials say there is a lack of qualified staff to investigate claims of wrongdoing, and some cases pose difficulties due to complexity or witness availability.
INVESTIGATION: Government Workers In Hawaii Get Paid Not To Work As Misconduct Investigations Drag On For Months Or Years
The Hawaii Government Employees Association, the union that represents workers like Kaaa-Swain, declined to comment for this story.
Kaaa-Swain’s case was the most egregious example identified in Civil Beat’s review of public records, and it is extreme even by national standards. Peter Jenkins, a Maryland-based attorney who has pushed for shorter periods of paid leave for federal employees, said he’s never seen anyone’s leave drag on that long.
Brandon Kaaa-Swain was accused of filing false mileage reports totaling over $12,000. (Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney’s Office/2020)
“It’s absurd to pay someone to not do anything for five years,” said Jenkins, who works for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm’s chief of staff, Paul Mow, said in an email he anticipates Kaaa-Swain’s case will be resolved in the next month. Asked what the holdup has been, Mow declined to comment further, noting he is prohibited from discussing a “sensitive HR issue.”
“My intention is to respect everyone’s privacy and ensure the process is handled appropriately,” Mow said.
Meanwhile, Kaaa-Swain may have even gotten a raise or two while he’s been out. The pay bracket that includes his position increased twice during his leave thanks to union contract negotiations, Civil Beat’s public employee salary database shows.
And every year that goes by is a step closer to eligibility for a lifetime of retirement benefits.
The industry standard for both the private and public sector is a few months, according to Hong, the Hilo employment attorney.
“If you can’t reach the conclusion that an offense was committed, you’ve got to bring them back,” Hong said. “If you believe there is something there, your duty is to take some kind of action.”
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