A new report from the Illinois Office of the Executive Inspector General finds that a state employee spent much of his time on the clock doing work in his role as mayor of south suburban town.

Deyon Dean was elected mayor of Riverdale in 2009, but he also kept his other job as the Associate Director of the Division of Community Health and Prevention within the state’s Department of Human Services.

The inspector general’s 51-page report said Dean repeatedly used state resources for personal and political purposes and would consistently arrive late and leave early for his job with the state government.

“He was engaging in non-state business, personal business, business on behalf of Riverdale and he was doing that by talking on his personal cell phone and his Riverdale cell phone throughout the day, up to about 15 percent of his state working hours,” said Assistant Inspector General Tiffany Stedman.

The report details several emails Dean received and sent from his state email address leading up to his election as Riverdale mayor in 2009, a position that pays about $35,000 a year, and then continued after his election.

It said Dean received more political emails than he sent, but “the prolonged pattern of continuous emails revealed that he did not take measures to discourage political emails to his State account.”

The report also alleged Dean attended conferences without requesting time off from his state job, including one conference called “Congratulations, You’ve Been Elected, Now What do you Do?”

In a written statement, Dean said of the report, “It was with deep regret that I resigned since I enjoyed my work with the State but the responsibilities of my mayoral office are such that the Village requires my full attention.”

Dean said he hopes to be re-elected.

“This is why double-dipping should be prohibited in government,” said Andy Shaw, head of the government watchdog group Better Government Association. “Something is always going to suffer. One group of taxpayers is always going to be cheated when you do two government jobs.” 

Shaw said Dean’s case is hardly rare in Illinois. He said the state legislature should ban double-dipping altogether because individuals can’t do either job effectively.

Meantime, the report also found that Dean’s supervisor at the Department of Human Services, Ivonne Sambolin, did not do enough to monitor him.