GPS devices on the rise to monitor employees

"We can't have public resources being used on private activities - that's Management 101," said Phil Nolan, supervisor of the Long Island town of Islip.

Islip saved nearly 14,000 gallons of gas over a three-month period from the previous year after GPS devices were installed. Nolan said that shows that employees know they are being watched and are no longer using Islip's 614 official vehicles for personal business.

Some administrators around the country emphasized that the primary purpose of the GPS devices is not to catch people goofing off but to improve the maintenance and operation of the vehicles and to design more efficient bus, snowplow, and trash-pickup routes. Among other things, the devices can be used to alert mechanics that a car's engine is operating inefficiently.

Still, in Indiana, six employees of the Fort Wayne-Allen County Health Department lost their jobs last year after an administrator bought three Global Positioning Satellite devices out of her own pocket and switched them in and out of 12 department vehicles to nail health inspectors running personal errands on the job.

Employees were caught going to stores, gyms, restaurants, churches, and their homes. The administrator was reimbursed the $750 she spent on the devices.

One of those who got in trouble, 27-year employee Elaine Pruitt, decried what she called "sneaky" methods. She said she had fallen ill and stopped at her home for a lunch break, returning to work 38 minutes late.

"Before, as long as we got our work done, there was never any problem," Pruitt said. "All of a sudden, it became wrong if you stopped at a grocery store for some gum."

In Massachusetts two years ago, a snowplow driver was accused of hiding his GPS device in a snowbank and then going off to do some private plowing. The driver pleaded guilty to a larceny charge and was fined $300.

In Denver, 76 vehicles equipped with GPS devices this year were driven 5,000 fewer miles than the unequipped fleet had during the same period the year before.

"It's growing by leaps and bounds," said Chris Ransom of Networkcar, one of the country's leading providers of GPS devices.