Following the release of an audit report that found Community Service Officer Program Coordinator Peter Kim accountable for misuse of university property and having employees work without meal breaks, the UCSD Police Department says it will keep him in charge of the program and no disciplinary action will be taken.

Allegations against Kim surfaced in February 2006, when the UCSD Human Resources Office received an e-mail stating that Kim chartered rides in a UCSD vehicle, often requesting transportation to off-campus locations. The e-mail also claimed that Kim did not allow his officers to take meal breaks during their shifts, although campus policy and California law require at least one half-hour meal break for any shift six hours or longer.

UCSD Audit and Management Advisory Services reviewed the CSO program’s records from the period between Sept. 1, 2005, and Feb. 28, 2006. Upon reviewing the records, interviewing members of the staff and analyzing the standing department policies, the auditing board came to the conclusion that Kim was responsible for all charges.

Kim, who told the Guardian on Sept. 27 that he had been cleared of all charges, was found responsible for both of the allegations made against him by former officers who claimed that, among other things, Kim often violated CSO policy in his own interest.

The audit report, submitted to UCSD Police Lt. David Rose, who is Kim’s supervisor, confirmed that Kim did request a total of 16 rides to both the Solana Beach and Sorrento Valley train stations during fall quarter of last year, and that none of these instances constituted a “work assignment” — the only acceptable reason why such an escort would be performed.

“[Kim] stated that he used the escort service when he worked later than the available shuttle services to the stations,” the report stated. “However, the rides to Sorrento Valley were requested between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., when the campus shuttle service was still available.”

Although the report criticized Kim’s actions, Rose stated that the matter amounted to no more than misunderstandings.

Kim did not respond to an e-mail request for a follow-up interview, instead forwarding comment to Rose.

Rose said he believes that Kim was confused by the situation and did not intentionally lie about the report’s contents when questioned earlier by the Guardian.

“I don’t think [Kim] meant to say ‘nothing happened,’” he said. “I think his perception of [the audit] was that he didn’t get into trouble for it. There was no discipline that came out of what occurred.”

Rose said that Kim’s work hours and scheduling difficulties, as well as his commute from Irvine to San Diego, led to the discrepancies in the escort requests.

“If he does continue, now that he clearly knows that this is unacceptable, then disciplinary action would be taken,” Rose said. “But I don’t believe that it will.”

In regard to the charges of forbidding CSOs to take proper meal breaks, Rose faults a contradiction in university and police department policies, which opposed each other at the time of the allegations. University policy stated that a break had to be given for shifts six hours or longer, whereas police department policy stated that breaks had to be given for shifts longer than six hours, thus creating a discrepancy with the university for shifts that were exactly six hours.

Some CSOs also misunderstood the policy for requesting a meal break on a long shift, which led to confusion and some students working the entire time, he said.

“We want our students to be happy,” Rose said. “They’re students first and student employees second.”

In addition, two former CSOs agreed to speak to the Guardian only on the condition of anonymity, due to an alleged policy preventing them from going on the record. Rose, however, denied knowledge of any written or implicit policy that would discourage members of the department from speaking to the media.

“Generally, the official department position is to speak with one voice,” Rose said. “It wouldn’t surprise me that people are told to speak to a supervisor.”

The audit report, which made recommendations for how to correct the problems that it details, suggested that the department revise the CSO manual to conform to university policy and counsel Kim against using university vehicles for his own use. However, through discussion between the auditing board and the department, an accord was ultimately reached.

“Because we were able to reach agreement [with the police department] regarding corrective actions to be taken in response to the audit recommendations, a formal response to the report is not requested,” the report stated.

According to Rose, the audit board’s findings were not taken lightly.

“Anything we talked to [AMAS] about has been corrected or is being corrected,” he said.