Lisa S. Duke, CFE, CPA, CFFA

Lisa S. Duke, CFE, CPA, CFFA, provides accountability to the citizens of New York State through the comptroller's office's audits and investigations. She supervises audits with teams of one to five staff members, ensures that each audit meets professional standards, reviews and evaluates work papers and facts supporting audit findings and recommendations. Duke then discusses those findings and recommendations with agency officials. She also prepares the draft report, among other duties.

I chose to become an accounting major because at a young age I realized the significance of this profession to companies' operations and our economic stability. I had read stories of embezzlement and money laundering, and I realized that we need auditors to keep people honest.

While at college, we did several case studies on fraud such as ZZZZ Best. My undergraduate auditing professor, Douglas Carmichael, Ph.D., CFE [Baruch College, City University of New York], introduced me to the areas of fraud and forensic accounting. The discussions we had in class led to my interest and awareness.

I was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, and my favorite activities growing up were playing soccer and chess.

I became passionate about fraud fighting after reading about the Enron and WorldCom scandals. I felt the need to be part of a profession that improves entities' operations and accountability by conducting examinations and reviews.

After completing my MBA, the NYS Comptrollers' Office, which had representatives at my college career fair, offered me a position.

I have gained expertise and experience in investigative interviewing techniques, specialized fraud audit tools, data analysis, forensic document review, custody and preserving evidence, and using the Internet to investigate fraud suspects.

I recently led a team that conducted several forensic audits of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's (MTA) payroll practices. The MTA, which is one of the largest mass transit systems in the world, has seven constituent agencies and employs more than 71,000 workers at an annual cost of about $4.6 billion.

At the MTA, we discovered that between 2006 and 2009, the entity's annual overtime costs increased from $476 million to $586 million — an increase of 23 percent. We examined MTA employees' overtime pay records and found that many were paid significant amounts of overtime, which in some cases exceeded their annual salaries. I found a transit bus maintenance shop supervisor had regularly scheduled himself to work 2 1/2 hours of overtime so he could be at work before the staff arrived. However, transit officials could not justify this, and his reported overtime hours were not independently verified because the supervisor self-reported his hours on his biweekly time sheet. He was paid $58,270 in overtime in the 2009 calendar year.

We discovered that Metro-North Railroad Hudson and Harlem line signal construction unit employees received unnecessary and wasteful payments because of long-term abuse and fraud. For calendar year 2010, these practices cost Metro-North $991,208 in overtime and $216,128 in regular pay and inflated future pension payments for these employees. Most of the signal construction workers are covered under a federal regulation that, generally, states that employees can work up to 12 hours within a 24-hour period, and then they must be provided with at least 10 hours of rest. Supervisors contrived work schedules so their employees worked 12-hour shifts overnight (often collecting overtime pay for this time), which then forced the employees to go into the hours of service interval/rest time pay. We found that supervisors knowingly included themselves in this scheme even though they aren't covered by the regulation.

The role of the auditor is critical in preventing and deterring fraud. When we interview the fraud perpetrators, their general attitude is one of entitlement.

Fraudsters are constantly looking for ways to outsmart us; therefore, by networking and sharing our cases, we can develop a platform to be ahead of the fraudsters. The ACFE has provided the forum for that platform.

Being a fraud fighter comes with many benefits: recouping loss revenue, deterring others within the same organization from committing the same fraud and holding those committing fraud accountable for their actions.

This career is very rewarding. Join the ACFE and become a CFE. Stand out from your peers. Get active in your local chapter; you will be amazed at the knowledge you will gain by networking with your fellow CFEs.

Cora Bullock is assistant editor of Fraud Magazine. 

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