THEFT: Prevent a recurrence

This week the city of Coeur d’Alene found that an employee working in their payroll department had apparently embezzled thousands of dollars of city money as reported in the Coeur d’Alene Press.

She had apparently been working for the city since 2002.

This raises several questions. Did the city ever audit the work performed by this employee? If not, why not? Did the employee’s manager ever question or audit the employee’s work? If not, why not? How did this embezzlement go unnoticed by city management? Were other city employees involved or had knowledge of the embezzlement?

A thorough and complete review of this embezzlement needs to be done and action taken to prevent this sort of fraud from occurring again. Payroll management needs to be addressed as to why their audit practices, if any, were so poor.

Hopefully this paper will follow up on this case as it unfolds.

BOB ORR

Coeur d’Alene