City Employee Fired Over Fraudulent Activity: West Haven Mayor

WEST HAVEN, CT — A city employee has been fired over fraudulent activity, according to West Haven Mayor Dorinda Borer.

Borer said the employee was submitting and getting reimbursed for classes she didn’t take.

Borer, who announced the firing in a video posted to Facebook on Thursday, said the city has a training and education budget for each department.

The city encourages professional development for employees, and has a policy where employees pay out of pocket first, and then get reimbursed upon successful completion of the class, according to Borer.

“This employee was registering for the classes, but then provided falsified, elaborate documentation that she attended and passed, and paid out of pocket,” Borer said in the video. “So, our finance department was reimbursing her for a few of these classes, until our new internal control report kicked in and flagged it.”

Borer said the city now has a mechanism that reviews accumulation of checks to an employee or vendor, and it kicks out activity that is highlighted. The finance department then brought it to Borer’s attention.

“I brought the employee in and asked her for an explanation,” Borer said. “There was no explanation, so I immediately terminated her employment and called our legal department.”

At the same time, Borer said the city received an alert that somebody was trying to penetrate and access the payroll account.

“We investigated that and it came back to the same employee,” Borer said. “So, we put all this together and provided it to our police department, who is reviewing this, and I’m very confident we’ll conclude and hold this employee accountable for her actions.”

Borer said she was sharing the information for two reasons – to be transparent and to show that the internal controls put in place in the wake of the theft of $1.2 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds are working.

“In the past $1.2 million was stolen and undetected for over a year period,” Borer said. “And I think this is an unfortunate way that demonstrates we do now have these controls in place.”

Borer said this fraudulent activity was caught within a three-week period.

Borer also noted that the employee, who wasn’t identified, had a criminal background check like all city employees, and there were no flags.

“So, there was no indication, but we’re never going to be able to stop people in this world from trying to gain the system or engaging in theft,” Borer said. “But, what we can do, is make sure we have safeguards and measures in place that mitigate these losses and catch it quickly.”

See also: West Haven To Receive $1M Insurance Claim From Stolen COVID-19 Funds

Watch Borer’s full message on Facebook below: