According to a Dec. 19, 2011 memo obtained through a public records request, King agreed to quit her county job instead of being fired for “falsification of documents and fraudulent submission” for $5,681.66 in gas mileage reimbursements over a two-year period. She agreed to pay back the money by drawing from her unused paid time off, “in lieu of prosecution,” according to memo, which was signed by King, MCJFS human resources director Patricia Baird and a union representative.
MCJFS also agreed to offer a “neutral reference” to any of King’s future prospective employers.
Theft in office — the use of a government office or resources to commit theft — of between $1,000 and $7,500 is a fourth-degree felony under Ohio law. “Knowingly” failing to report knowledge of felonious activity is a fourth-degree misdemeanor.
A spokesman for Heck said the prosecutor’s office was unaware of the resignation agreement until informed by the Daily News.
“It’s an interesting situation, to say the least,” said spokesman Greg Flannagan.
Following questions from the Daily News, Montgomery County officials are now reviewing internal procedures should a similar situation come up in the future. They are also reviewing the decisions that led to the deal with King, who declined to comment for this story when reached by telephone.
“If there are situations where management has some concern about whether in fact there’s been activity that rises to the level of being illegal, then what we will do is make sure it’s reviewed by the prosecutor’s office,” said Joe Tuss, interim Montgomery County administrator. “Based on counsel from the prosecutor’s office, we will act accordingly.”
County officials said they agreed to the deal to avoid the risk that an independent arbitrator might reinstate King’s county job were she to appeal being fired.
“In this case, although in hindsight we should have referred it to the prosecutor, we had all the information we needed, and (the resignation agreement) minimized disruption to the agency,” said Montgomery County JFS Director Gayle Bullard. “(King) agreed not to appeal it, and we had the taxpayers’ money back.”
Flannagan said he couldn’t comment on whether MCJFS broke the law by not reporting the alleged theft.
“Without more information or an investigation, we don’t really know what the evidence was. We don’t know if they knew it was a felony,” Flannagan said.
Shown a copy of the county’s agreement with King, Thomas Hagel, a University of Dayton professor and substitute magistrate for Dayton Municipal Court, said it appears MCJFS officials “had a duty per statute to report what appears to be the crime of theft in office.”
“If they had reported the facts to the prosecutor’s office, of course it’s to the prosecutor’s discretion whether to file charges,” Hagel said. “But there’s no doubt in my mind that (not reporting) was in violation of the statute.”
Hagel said the reporting law is rarely enforced. But he said the fact the failure to report involves a government office should raise its profile.
“I think that it deserves more scrutiny because there’s not a single victim here. The public has been victimized. Taxpayer money has been stolen,” he said.
The investigation into the alleged theft began in September 2011, when the county auditor’s office rejected King’s application for a $753.69 mileage reimbursement, according to a county document obtained through a public records request. A corrected request was re-submitted in November for $347.99. A subsequent review that compared every reimbursement claim King had ever filed with supporting documentation showed that King since had over-claimed 11,022 miles in mileage reimbursements dating back to December 2009, according to records and county officials. That works out to $5,681.66, or a reimbursement rate of about 51.5 cents per mile.
King had worked for Montgomery County Children’s Services between 2002 and January 2006 and again from December 2006 until she resigned in December 2011, according to personnel records. King, who made $22.64 an hour when she quit, had no previous disciplinary history and received good performance evaluations.
How MCJFS handled allegations that King stole from taxpayers contrasts with another internal investigation around the same time.
Last March, Baird called the sheriff’s office after discovering that an employee may have stolen $675 worth of taxpayer-funded furniture that had disappeared from a foster care placement program, as previously reported by this newspaper. That employee was suspended for one day for failing to follow internal protocols, but the sheriff’s office closed the case after prosecutors said there wasn’t enough evidence to press charges.
Bullard said MCJFS went to police in that instance because unlike the situation involving King, there were unanswered questions, and MCJFS officials did not feel they could investigate it completely by themselves.
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