Disbelief breaks it down:
I think we’ve been misdirected quite successfully.
The issue here is that a lot of money was stolen from the State; the nepotism stuff is a collateral issue, but is being used to draw attention away from theft of State money.
Two reasons were given for the theft: “we had controls that they bypassed”, and “the scheme was complex”. The first reason is bullshit. In order for accounting controls to work, someone has to know about the controls and review the controls consistently. The controls are not put into evidence because that would make Cordrey and Wagner look like idiots. The second reason is bullshit. The scheme was not complex; there is simply no one watching the henhouse. The details of the scheme are not put into evidence because, again, the simplicity of the theft would make Cordrey look like an idiot for not catching it earlier, and not having controls in place and followed that would have prevented the theft.
The article by Barrish was brilliant. It points everyone to an issue collateral to the theft (nepotism), taking attention away from the theft. The problem here is State officials who have no idea what they are doing and are ignoring their duties as responsible custodians for State goods and services.
Well done, Mr. Barrish.
Lofink is described in the article as handling about 20 escheat claims a month. That’s less than one per State work day. In addition, TNJ states that most of the work was done by an outside contractor. In addition, TNJ states that various temporary employees also helped process claims.
So we have about 10 people handling less than one claim a day? And Lofink managed to fool them?
Yeah.
Contols over escheat claims:
1) verify existence of claimant through phone call and address look-up
2) supervisor of 1) authorizes check
3) internal audit reviews checks every other month to verify that check was made out to claimant verified in 1), and reviews depositing account information printed on back of cancelled check.Fellow posters: the issue here is no controls, no one in charge who understands controls, and what looks like a $300,000 payroll to look at less than one claim per day. Yes, nepotism is an issue over these jobs that are essentially ‘no show’, but the nepotism issue is WAY overshadowed by simple, garden variety lack of management on the part of upper State management.
The point above is that even in the absence of nepotism, any idiot could still steal money, or build a bridge to nowhere, or rape patients with little worry of being held accountable. The problem isn’t the State employee who may or may not be related to some one important; the issue is that those in charge are AWOL.
Nobody at the News Journal could have come up with that? Please.
Also – I’m really getting tired of all the high and mighty moralists on the Republican side who have nothing to say when it is a Republican in the police blotter.