To most folks, it would be downright unnerving to steal $56,720 from an employer, even if it was spread out over the course of a year.
For someone working a Monday through Friday schedule, that amounts to lifting an average of $226 a day.
What’s the point?
It’s time for the federal government to go after every penny a Benton County accountant stole from county taxpayers.
In the case of former Benton County accountant Connie Guild, it was just the beginning of her deception. The next year, her "take" was $130,441. By 2009, it grew to $197,662 before starting to slightly dwindle, but stayed above $100,000 a year.
The amount stolen from the taxpayers of Benton County, by 2016, totaled more than $1 million, an astonishing figure made even more so by the fact it had been accomplished over the course of a decade. It's also amazing it that all the usual protective measures of government accounting did virtually nothing to uncover Guild's duplicity.
In Guild's case, crime paid. Until it didn't. A little more than a week ago Guild entered a guilty plea in federal court to a charge of theft involving federal funding. She also pleaded guilty to filing a false income tax return.
The betrayal of trust forced her employer, Benton County, to take a hard and apparently needed look at its money-tracking procedures. County leaders have given assurances they've adopted the necessary processes to protect the public's money in case anyone else comes up with a scheme. It's amazing it took so long for anyone to notice the evaporation of cash. Unfortunately, greed inspires creativity.
Guild, who was fired in September after federal law enforcement agents showed up at the county to investigate, has pledged repayment of what she stole or forfeiture of assets. Her sentencing will come later.
Guild helped herself to tax dollars. It's time for government to help itself to whatever she has to satisfy her debt of shame.
Commentary on 04/25/2017