6 charged with lying about downed signs to collect overtime

(AP) Six Kansas City public works employees have been charged with lying about damaged road signs so they could be called in on overtime to fix them.

The U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release that a 13-count indictment was unsealed Thursday in the nearly three-year-old, $58,000 overtime fraud conspiracy.

The indictment alleges that the workers made false reports and enlisted the help of friends and relatives. Suspicious managers began going to the scene and photographing signs that weren’t busted.

They also tracked the GPS on work trucks and found that the vehicles often didn’t go to the locations of the allegedly downed signs.