Article: Premier's staffer tried to claim $167 transport fine

[ozbob]

From the Herald Sun click here!

Premier's staffer tried to claim $167 transport fine

Premier's staffer tried to claim $167 transport fine
Article from: Herald Sun

Fiona Hudson

September 08, 2009 12:00am

A PREMIER'S department staffer busted without a train ticket at Parliament station tried to pass the $167 fine on to taxpayers.

The penny-pinching public servant lodged an expense claim for the infringement notice after failing to convince Transport Department officials to drop the fine.

But bean-counters at the Department of Premier and Cabinet rejected the expense claim, forcing the skinflint staffer to eventually dip into their own pocket.

Details of the saga came to light via a Freedom of Information request.

The Herald Sun can't reveal the tightwad's name or position because FOI officers deleted the details for privacy reasons.

Ticket inspectors caught the anonymous Premier's department employee without a valid ticket at 8.45am on October 30 last year.

In an appeal letter to the Transport Department, the staffer sought to have the fine dropped on the grounds his or her yearly ticket had expired at midnight on 29 October -- hours before he or she copped the $167 fine.

The staffer believed the Premier's department should foot the bill for the fine because there had been an unexpected delay in the delivery of a new annual ticket purchased using fortnightly salary deductions.

"I did not receive my new yearly ticket until 10am on October 30, 2008 -- 1 hour and 15 minutes too late to prevent me receiving a fine," the staffer said in an appeal letter.

"I therefore kindly request that the Department of Transport excuse me from the infringement notice . . . having regard to the fact that I have a paid yearly ticket that was not in my possession for reasons beyond my control."

But Transport Department assessors ruled the excuse invalid. The employee then tried to pass the fine on to taxpayers via an expense claim.

But the application was knocked back -- the only expense claim that the department has any record of rejecting in the past two years.

[ButFli]

It would be nice if Queensland public servants were so cunning.