Wednesday, April 3, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- Two former mental-health professionals at the state prison face a civil suit accusing them of padding the payroll to collect more than $10,000.
Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, however, said a year-long investigation failed to turn up enough evidence to prosecute them criminally.
The suit was brought against former Mental Health Director Dr. Michael Nelson and Dr. Donald I. Templer, a supervising psychologist.
Nelson was fired by the prison and Templer resigned later.
Templer was hired on a full-time basis but also continued as a full-time faculty member in Fresno, Calif., at the California School of Professional Psychology.
The suit said Templer was hired in July 1991 and was paid for full time even though he worked "substantially less than the number of hours stated on the bi-weekly time sheets."
Deputy Attorney General Mariah Sugden said Templer usually worked about half of the required 80 hours required in a two-week time period.
She said Templer would, however, sign a time sheet that he worked the full number of hours. And Nelson also signed the same time sheet approving the pay.
Templer told state investigators he sent a memo each pay period to Nelson of the hours he actually worked.
This continued until March 1995, when authorities got an anonymous tip about the scam. Nelson then refused to cooperate with a state audit that eventually led to the probe conducted by the Nevada Division of Investigation.
As a result of the investigation, Del Papa recommended the prison department institute standard controls, including sign-in sheets and/or time logs for medical department employees.
Prison Director Bob Bayer also reorganized the fiscal section of the prison medical division, making it responsible to the chief fiscal officer of the prison.
Del Papa said the investigation division reviewed hundreds of pages of records and documents and conducted numerous interviews. "Unfortunately, there is simply not enough evidence to prosecute criminally," she said.
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