People in Grapevine want answers after the city said two former employees spent thousands of tax dollars for personal use.
During a special city council meeting on Tuesday, council members asked questions and members of the public expressed their outrage with the news.
During the meeting, Grapevine City Manager Bruno Rumbelow said a finance staff member notified the city about the potential spending. They obtained an outside forensic auditor to review purchases between Oct. 2018 and Nov. 2021.
According to the city, the audit found that the two former department heads spent a combined $58,275 on personal items. They had used their city purchasing card to buy the personal items, said the city in a statement.
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"The City of Grapevine takes its responsibility as a fiduciary of taxpayer dollars seriously. As such, we employ both internal and external auditing of expenditures to insure compliance with city policy, generally accepted accounting practices and State law," said the city in a statement.
Some in the public have questioned why the former employees were able to resign rather than be terminated.
Kevin Mitchell, the former director of Parks and Recreation, resigned last month after working for the city for 22 years. Ruth Chiego, director of Grapevine Public Library, had worked with the city for three years and also resigned in February according to the city.
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"It pains me to say that the trust that we placed in these two individuals as it relates to this issue was misplaced, but it's my responsibility I'm the one who hired them, I'm ultimately the one who made the decision about the restitution amounts," said Rumbelow to council on Tuesday.
He said Mitchell had already repaid the city $33,359. He said Chiego is obligated to repay $24,916 by Oct. 2022.
During the council meeting, it was discussed that there is concern that more money could have been used for personal items, but because of missing receipts and other issues, it was unclear in the audit.
NBC 5 did make contact with both individuals, but they did not have a comment at this time.
In a statement, the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney's Office said its White Collar Crime and Public Integrity Team has asked the Grand Jury to open an investigation into the alleged theft of funds from the City of Grapevine by its employees.
The city of Grapevine said it has taken action to make sure this doesn't happen again. In a statement, the listed the following items:
Upon being informed of the concern, the City Manager’s office took the following steps:
• Retained an outside forensic auditor to review the P-Card purchases for both
employees whose spending was questioned, and further tasked them with
reviewing a significant number of other P-Card purchases to assess citywide
compliance.
• The outside forensic audit report completed in mid-January, was provided to the
City’s external auditor.
• The report made recommendations for internal control improvements which were
immediately instituted. Further, the auditor identified the personal purchase
transactions made by the two department heads.
• Both department heads resigned and are required to pay back the funds spent for
personal use as recommended by the audit firm
