Editorial: It’s only tax money

A few months back, the Review-Journal reported the story of an employee with the Las Vegas Valley Water District who was fired in December for embezzling money in a purchasing scheme involving ink jet cartridges. In March, she turned up working in a similar job at UNLV’s purchasing department.

That was a real head scratcher.

Now consider the case of James Petrie, a billing and collections supervisor with Boulder City’s utility department. Mr. Petrie lost his job in December after an outside audit found $50,000 missing from the city’s bank accounts, the Review-Journal’s Kimber Laux reported last month.

City Manager David Fraser told Ms. Laux that the supervisor was “responsible for processing those deposits.” Bryce Boldt, Boulder City’s director of human resources, said in an email that Mr. Petrie offered no explanation for the missing cash.

Inquisitive Boulder City taxpayers may be interested to learn what happened to the money. But at this point, nobody knows. Mr. Boldt’s email explained that the “Boulder City Police Department is conducting an extensive investigation of the missing deposits.”

But it turns out $50,000 is only a portion of the public’s liability.

Following his termination, Mr. Petrie sued the city over his release, as did his union, the Teamsters. Mr. Petrie’s attorney argued that “processing bank deposits” was not in his client’s job description and that Mr. Petrie had “never received training in processing deposits,” Mr. Boldt wrote. A few days before a scheduled April arbitration hearing, Boulder City officials agreed to settle the matter, paying Mr. Petrie $58,408 to go away.

Mr. Boldt explains that the city cut a deal because the cost to Boulder City taxpayers of defending the suits could have been “significantly higher” than the settlement, “regardless of legal outcome.”

So let’s recap. Boulder City axes an employee after 50 grand vanishes from municipal accounts. The police still haven’t figured out what happened to the funds. But the fired worker then receives a nice parting check for more than the missing cash because the city opts against defending its decision to send him packing.

What about this makes sense?

“We are satisfied with the terms of that settlement,” Mr. Boldt said in his email.

We suspect that Boulder City residents, on the hook for more than $108,000 that just disappeared into thin air, might have a different perspective.