I have had the most difficult job drawing attention to the most egregious failure of government that I have personally experienced. I’m going to try again. This story is about my former employer, a public school district, getting away with the theft (or the “borrowing”) of emplyee Social Security money! I have enough proof to believe that theft occurred, but it would take a real government audit to prove it in a xourt of law. So far, no government agency cares enough to do that audit, so I have come to two conclusions: 1. The utter lack of transparency in the management of taxpayer dollars is indefensible; and, 2. The theft of Social Security money at LOCAL levels is a new part of the right wing attempt to brankrupt ALL aspects of the government expect the war making  economy.

      In this new posting I have eliminated all quotations from MY emails to government in order to shorten the posting. I will quote from the emails  I received. Most of them are from one particular person in the state auditors office back in 2007. Follow the dates. Notice the long gaps in time. Notice how long it took to get an actual admission from the auditor’s office that something was wrong.

      I ask you to post a comment to my blog. Whatever you think, go ahead and write it. Maybe I should just let this go. Maybe I’m wrong in thinking that it matters. Please let me know, but if you find it shocking let’s stir it up and demand accountability! I don’t think it’s an isolated case. I’m betting that it goes on nation wide.

      I am removing the name of the state and I do not want to reveal the name of the school district for only one reason- in my experience it is always and only the STUDENTS and TEACHERS who pay the price for school district malfeasance. I have saved all the emails and would share them with anyone who I thought could use them to do good.

      Okay, all my emails were requests for an investigation because I was being told by many fellow employees that yearly Social Security statements showed zero income for various years.     

 

Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007

Mr. Dunn,

We are in the process of contacting the school

district's independent audit firm to ask them to look into your concern regarding the earnings amount showing on your Social Security Statement of Earnings for the last 2 years.  I will contact you again once I hear back from the audit firm.

From March 22, 2007

Mr. Dunn,

We contacted the independent audit firm prior to them going back out to the District in February asking them to look into this issue and report

back to us.  After receiving your e-mail yesterday, we contacted the audit firm to find out the results of their inquiry.  They have not yet returned our call.  I will contact you by Monday or Tuesday next week to update you or let you know what the audit firm found.

 

March 27, 2007

Mr. Dunn,

We are still following up on your question.  ____ ____, on my staff, spoke with one of the partners at the audit firm who was going to check on what her staff found out.  She told ____ she would call her back yesterday or today.  I have left two messages for the partner today on her office phone and cell phone.  I will continue to follow-up on this to get you an answer.

 

April 2, 2007

Mr. Dunn,

We understand your frustration.  We get many calls and e-mails with

questions regarding school districts and rely on the contract auditors

to answer some of the questions if they are currently auditing a

district.

If we do not get an answer back from the Districts auditors with in the

next week, we will check into your question ourselves.

Mr. ______

 

April 3, 2007 

Mr. Dunn,

I explained to you in my last e-mail that we rely on the contract auditors to answer some of the questions we receive, if they are currently auditing a district.  I also reassured you that if we did not receive an answer to your question from the auditors within the next week, we would check into your question ourselves.

 You sent a return e-mail thanking us, but then did not allow us that week before questioning our integrity.  I can assure you that our agency takes seriously every inquiry we receive and that we respond to every question or request for information with an answer or the best referral we can find to help with the question or request.

 

 

April 9, 2007

Mr. Dunn,

You do not have to wait on us to take whatever action you feel is appropriate.  We will call the contract audit firm today, as promised,

to see if they have an answer to your question.  If they do not, we will research your question ourselves.  We cannot estimate how long it will take to obtain an answer.  The "contract" audit firm, which I am referring to, contracts with the school district and not with the Office of the Auditor General.  We have no specific statutory authority to make an independent audit firm answer an employee's question, but asked them to look into your question.

We will send you information on your question when we obtain it. 

 

April 10, 2007

Mr. Dunn,

 We have received information that indicates that the District may not have filed its Form W-3s (Transmittal of Wage and Tax Statements) with the Social Security Administration for the tax years 2002, 2003, and 2004.  We are in the process of verifying that social security withholdings for those years were properly withheld and submitted.

 We will provide you with further information on this matter when we have concluded our research.

 

Monday, April 23, 2007

Mr. Dunn,

The contract auditors have determined and confirmed with the Social

Security Administration (SSA), that W-2s were not filed timely by the

District with the SSA for the calendar years 2002, 2004, and 2005.  The

District's payroll clerk has since submitted W-2s for those years to

SSA; however, discrepancies exist among the documents submitted to the

SSA for each year, as well as 2003, which must be resolved by the

District by working with the SSA.

My division, the Accounting Services Division, will be taking over this

matter from the contract audit firm at this point and following up with

the District payroll clerk and other District officials, as well as with the Social Security Administration, until each of these years'

discrepancies are resolved.

If you, or your fellow employees, are showing -0- dollar amounts for any other years than 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 on your Social Security

Statements, please provide me with faxed copies of those statements with the names and social security numbers blacked out, so we can expand our review to the affected years.

I will continue to keep you updated on this issue until it is resolved.

 

From the state office of the Attroney General, May 3, 2007:

Hello Mr. Dunn:  I will review this with others in the office.  At this

juncture, this matter is not being treated as a violation of criminal

law.  We have been in touch with the District through its legal counsel

and we will continue to monitor the situation.  Thank you for your

vigilance in spotting this problem and in reporting it. 

 

From the Auditor’s office, May, 3, 2007

Mr. Dunn,

 Rather than forwarding my previous e-mail to all your co-workers, you may let them know that -

 The Office of the Auditor General has confirmed that W-2 forms for at least 3 years (2002, 2004, and 2005) were not filed by the District with the Social Security Administration (SSA) in a timely manner.  The Auditor General's and Attorney General's Office are currently looking into this matter to help ensure that it gets resolved.

As stated before, I will continue to keep you updated on this issue.

 

 

From the state Ombudsman, May 18, 2007

Mr, Dunn,

We contacted the Auditor General's Office and learned that the concern about the district not submitting W-2s was not included in their audit report because they issued the report before they had all the information about this problem.  Nevertheless, they have been in contact with the district and the district is working on resolving the problem.  The state Attorney General's Office has also been in contact with the district's attorney's to explain to them how serious this is.

 

Well, Dear Reader, do you think you or I would be allowed to get away with this kind of crap if it was one of us who was this sloppy with our accounting? Would our lawyer be notified about how serious the matter was?

I recently read a CNN Money report that the current amount of money “borrowed” from Social Security and Medicare by the federal government is FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS! How much more is unaccounted for from private and local governments? Are there any “IOUs” on file for that money? Is there any “good faith and credit of the United States government” backing up us little people? Are we “too big to fail?” I think so.