Boulder City employee fired after money went missing gets settlement in lawsuit

Boulder City has paid a former utilities department employee nearly $60,000 to settle a wrongful termination lawsuit, a city administrator said.

James Petrie, who worked in the utility department as a billing and collection supervisor starting in 2011, was fired in December after a third-party audit found $50,000 missing from the city’s bank accounts.

“It was identified that there were discrepancies in deposits totaling approximately $50,000,” City Manager David Fraser wrote in a statement in March. “Mr. Petrie was responsible for processing those deposits.”

Petrie was fired for failing to properly complete his work commitments, Fraser said.

He sued the city for wrongful termination and was supposed to enter into arbitration in April, but Petrie’s attorney said the city, Teamsters Local 14 and Petrie reached a “mutually agreeable resolution.”

The city disclosed Tuesday that it spent more than the amount of money that went missing to settle the suit.

“Settlement costs were $58,408,” city spokesman Bryce Boldt said May 24.

Boldt did not say whether the city has found the missing money.

Contact Kimber Laux at klaux@bouldercityreview.com or 702-586-9523. Find @lauxkimber on Twitter.