STATE E-MAIL MISUSE INVESTIGATION WIDENS

Late last month I passed along a story broken by the St. Petersburg Times' Tallahassee bureau chief Lucy Morgan that four employees of the state Department of Education had been or would be sacked for sending personal and/or inappropriate e-mails via their state-provided work accounts.

Friday Ms. Morgan did a follow-up column on the investigation, and the count now reads that 14 employees at four agencies have been fired and a number of others either suspended or receiving written reprimands placed into their personnel files:

Department of Education: The original four terminated.

Department of Transportation: One termination with six suspensions ranging from one to six days.

Department of Children and Families: Eight terminations with one suspension. Two employees will receive "counseling". Two former employees were identified as having participated but had already left.

Department of Business and Professional Regulation: One termination with another employee under investigation.

Department of State: Four employees under investigation for allegedly forwarding some of the lewd e-mails sent by Education employees.

All of those who have been disciplined or terminated were charged with conduct unbecoming a public employee.

Just another reminder that your e-mail account at work IS NOT PRIVATE, and should never be treated as so. Many companies and agencies are stepping up monitoring of e-mail usage to insure that their accounts are only used for work related communication. Be careful...