MY tax dollars at work

– Dori writes…

The unemployment rate for young people these days is through the roof. Unless mommy works for the Lake Forest Park Water District – in which case, for one family the employment rate for kids was 100 percent.

This latest taxpayer ripoff was confirmed by the state auditor on Tuesday. According to the Seattle Times:

A Lake Forest Park water-district office administrator used her teenage children to help siphon away more than $350,000 in ratepayer money over seven years, according to a state audit.

The administrator allegedly put her children on the payroll, forged receipts and kept the district’s financial records in a padlocked cabinet while she was one of two full-time employees in the Lake Forest Park Water District’s tiny modular office on Northeast 178th Street.

A three-member board approved her expenses and budgets for years while she charged new laminate flooring for her house and used district money for motorcycle parts, a dog kennel and college tuition, the state audit shows.

Amazingly, the women’s crimes were first identified in 2011 – but she wasn’t fired until Tuesday of this week. And she still isn’t being named because criminal charges have not been filed.

One of the most insane fees that I personally have to pay is to this public utility. Because I have a sprinkler system in my yard, I have to pay every year to have an inspector come out to check my “backflow inhibitor.” One of the most nonsense-fees ever. I guess the LFP Water District needed that money to pay for this employees kids. From the Times story:

The oldest of her three children was paid $56,351 between 2005, when he was 15, and February 2011. One time sheet was signed off for five hours, then altered to say he worked 41.5 hours.

The woman’s daughter started temporary work at the water district when she was 15 and was paid $84,791 between April 2007 and January 2011.

The administrator had a water-district cellphone, but she added an extra one in 2008 and used 20,000 minutes and 300,000 text messages in two years.

Receipts revealed $99,000 in misappropriated credit-card charges. The administrator allegedly paid for her own college tuition and her daughter’s and bought motorcycle- and car-stereo systems, video games, energy drinks, household furniture, groceries, wood-laminate flooring and clothing.

She also bought things for office use, took them back to the store, and then kept the refunded money, according to the report.

I will work hard on Wednesday’s show to get answers on how and why this woman was allowed to rip off me and other taxpayers for so long. And why haven’t criminal charges been filed yet?

Listen: Lake Forest Park water district president explains what’s next

This is yet another example of how so much of government at all levels has been structured as a criminal operation designed to extract as much money as possible from all of us.

But, remember they need to raise our taxes because they’ve already “cut to the bone.”