Events are overtaking my ablity to blog about them fast enough. Late Saturday, the Chronicle posted an update to their Friday article discussing the forgery of Carol Alvarado’s initials.

Once again, the city reacted with unusual speed to a TPIA request, responding during a meeting of the Chronicle editorial board with Ms. Alvarado.

The memo, obtained through the Texas Public Information Act, was faxed to the Chronicle during the editorial board meeting from the office of City Controller Annise Parker.

The dramatic exchange marked the first time, Alvarado said, that she has seen the document. “This is forgery,” she said.

Parker said the memo was one of a series that requested bonuses totaling $130,000 since 2004.

This marks the entry of City Controller Parker into the fray, although she is only providing requested information and the basics of how the bonuses were paid out. And a little dig at Ms. Alvarado, as we’ll see below. It also has some bearing on my earlier comment:

While I assume that the process is mostly automated, it says something about the lack of oversight and built-in safeguards that no alarm was raised when special checks started being cut for tens of thousands of dollars to employees.

From the Chronicle:

On Friday, Parker provided the first account of how the bonuses were approved.

The memo she provided, dated Jan. 10 and addressed from Alvarado to payroll employee Alice Ravin, is like numerous others investigators are examining, Parker said.

I’m archiving a clipped version of the Chronicle’s picture here, since their link may disappear after a few days.

It appears that this is slightly different from the mechanism that I described the other day, as these are clearly indicated as additional pay, not a pay scale adjustment. That indicates to me that they’ve been doing this so much in some departments that a simplified SOP was developed; they don’t have to “game” the base pay anymore. Also, I clipped the page to save bandwidth but the amounts of the bonuses were $2k and less; it’s just that they did it almost every pay period.

“Everything was documented as though it was completely legitimate and supported,” Parker said. “There was a complete trail. … There was no effort at all to hide this.”

But it’s this part that caught my attention:

Parker, who questioned why Alvarado or someone on her staff hadn’t recognized the bloated payroll figures,

Probably because the staff were the ones doing it, and Alvarado delegated everything to them?

. . .the controller’s office red-flagged one series of payments last spring. Payroll officials then indicated that the requests were legitimate, she said.

Clearly, an alarm was raised, after all, but someone silenced it. It is barely possible that some incurious soul in the payroll office just looked to see that the paperwork was in order and didn’t bother going any further. But if I had to bet, I’d go with the odds being slightly in favor of someone covering for them.

Note the dig at Ms. Alvarado’s lack of oversight. She is definately being thrown to the wolves by everyone except her current collegues and the Mayor. Quan and Goldberg have spoken out, but neither are presently council members. So. . . . has anyone asked former mayor Brown for his opinion on the supervisory qualities of his former assistant?

Another thing that caught my attention:

The Chronicle reported in 2000 that some council members had given their employees bonuses ranging from $100 to $1,100. Some council members also have given surplus funds back to city departments.

Nah…. Quit dreaming, they’re not reading this blog. 🙂

In her meeting at the Chronicle, Alvarado said she authorized a 2 percent pay increase for some pro tem office employees in 2004. She also said she granted a later raise, but she couldn’t remember the details.

Let’s see, we, the rank and file, got what for raises? 1% Was that 2004, or 2005; I have trouble remembering these huge windfalls. (I was fortunate enough to be on the director’s short list for that one.)

Another document obtained Friday by the Chronicle shows that Alvarado granted three employees — Hernandez, Watkins and James Rodriguez, her district office chief of staff — the authority to sign documents on her behalf, using their own names. But that authority does not grant any employee the right to use her signature.

This is not an uncommon practice in our department. . . when someone is going to be out of the office for more than a day. Such authority is always for a limited time. Our auditors get really hinky if people with improper authority levels start signing off on documents, especially if money is involved. Of course if you’re a council member, I imagine auditors don’t bother you that much, because they all work for F&A. Council members might get a bit annoyed if bureaucrats working for the mayor spend too much time looking over their shoulders. (Special auditors work for the Controller’s office, but I’m talking about the normal oversight.)

And finally, one last, humorous aside. The handwriting expert brought in by the Chronicle was absolutely adamant that one sample of each wasn’t enough to make any determinations as to forgery or authenticity. Very much so. Clearly they should have let CBS find them a different expert. Isn’t Dan Rather up in Austin these days? I’m sure he’d give them some advice. . . .

I am so mean. 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀