Alvarado to Chron editorial board: "that's not my handwriting"
Matt Stiles has more on (what Houblog has coined) Bonusgate and it includes an appearance by City Controller Annise Parker:
A series of memos awarding disputed monthly performance bonus payments to four city employees contain scrawled initials purporting to be those of Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado, who said today that someone forged her signature.
"I can tell you right now that's not my handwriting," said Alvarado, who sighed and appeared shaken when shown one memo Thursday during a meeting with the Houston Chronicle editorial board.
"These are clearly not my initials."
Moments later she signed the cursive letters "CA" on a personal letterhead pad, and they appeared different than those on the memo, obtained through the Texas Public Information Act .
[snip]
The memo was released by City Controller Annise Parker, who also provided Thursday the first account of how the bonuses were approved since Mayor Bill White announced the investigation Wednesday. Dated Jan. 10, and labeled from Alvarado to a payroll employee, it is like numerous others being examined by investigators.
Parker said the memos, which ask payroll to provide the four employees "one-time performance incentive pay" as "a bonus for work well done," appear legitimate.
"Everything was documented as though it was completely legitimate and supported," she said. "There was a complete trail. There was no effort at all to hide this. It just came through normal procedures."
UPDATE: Chris Baker is interviewing former Councilman Mark Goldberg. Among other things Goldberg said that the Mayor Pro Tem's office manager making a base salary of $75,000 is eye-popping. He said that is deputy director pay. And then to add an almost $50,000 bonus on top of it, he said, sounds criminal.
He said he used to review his budget every one or two months and numbers like that would have jumped out at him.
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: KPRC-2 reports the following:
Mayor Bill White said he was preparing an executive order that would put tighter controls over the entire payroll of City Council offices.
Four employees in the office of Houston Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado were removed from their jobs Wednesday in the payroll investigation.
Meanwhile, KPRC reported that one of the four suspended workers tried to change the current checks and balances by herself and the mayor pro tem almost helped her do it. Alvarado tried to change the system in order to give one of the accused employees, Rosie Hernandez, more power over payroll. Hernandez ran the office.
"It sounded like, OK, it will simplify the process," Alvarado said.
But other council members shut down the idea and kept payroll oversight with the city's finance and administration department.
That department was the one that was supposed to catch the $130,000 worth of bonuses now under question.
The mayor said workers in the finance and administration department may have jobs on the line.
That's all well and good, but more immediately, we have nearly reached the point politically that Carol Alvarado needs to resign as Mayor Pro Tem, or Mayor White will have to consider replacing her.
BLOGVERSATION: Rhymes with Right.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 02/17/06 06:15 PM | Print |
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