State correction officials said this week they did an "informal internal" review of Dr. Metiko Olushola's second job as a medical file reviewer for the state Division of Motor Vehicles and found nothing wrong.
But they have yet to say how many hours he is working on that second job and when he is working them.
Two days before our Sunday story about Olushola's second job, the department's top medical official, Dr. Paula Smith, issued an email statement that praised the doctor, but gave no indication there had been any internal review. Olushola is the Central Prison hospital's chief medical officer.
The department didn't acknowledge the internal review until Rep. Shirley Randleman, a Wilkesboro Republican and a chief budget writer for prisons, told us on Monday that one was underway. She had not been told that it had been completed, and she was not satisfied with the lack of information about the results.
She said she would be seeking more information through legislative staff.
Our story raised questions about the second job because Olushola is reviewing as many as 10,000 files annually, earning $6 per file. These are files of people who are at risk of losing their driving privileges for health reasons.
If he spent the five minutes minimum per file that DMV officials are expecting, he would be looking at the equivalent of 18 to 20 weeks of full time work per year.
Metiko has been getting permission to perform the second job through the department by filling out a form known as a "Request & Approval of Secondary Employment" over the past decade.
Back when he began putting in for the approvals, the form included a line that required the applicant to estimate how many hours the second job would take each week. In his 2001 form, Metiko estimated two hours weekly. (We do not know how many cases he handled that year.)
But in later years, that line disappeared from the form. As a result, Metiko's supervisors are now approving his and other correction employees' requests without requiring a written estimate as to how much time those second jobs will take.
Dan Kane has covered local and state government and N.C. State University at The News & Observer since joining our staff in 1997. Most recently, he and Joseph Neff teamed to report “The Generous Assembly”, a five-part series that explored how special interests make it difficult for legislators to make meaningful budget cuts. He also recently reported on lucrative administrative leaves in the state’s university system. Contact him at 
