This is another sad economic tale. I’ve worked with the person involved before and it was a shock to read about the situation. Unfortunately, there are many things going on behind the public’s view that don’t come to light and should. That’s not to dismiss the legitmacy of this investigation, nor to discredit other women in Canyon County government.

I’m pleased they are catching these folks, but makes me sick to think how many are not getting caught. And as history shows, this sort of thing is a way of life in some parts of the nation.

Does the Editor have any statistics on theft from the public trust as compared to the private sector?

Zippo,

The Department of Justice and the FBI track these White Collar Crime figures annually. For this specific type of crime (embezzlement), 87% of all offenses occur in the Commercial & Private sectors — with the remaining 13% occuring in Government & Public sectors. Government-only offenses (of which this is one) account for 3% of all embezzlement, the remaining 10% occurs in quasi-governmental organizations (public foundations, organizations with tax exempt status, or in companies employed exclusively by goverment agencies).

To get a truer snapshot of the figures, you would have to compare the number of public employees to private-sector employees. Or, more to the point, you should add up the number of all employees who secure their paycheck from public funds (Federal Civilians, Local & State employees, Active Duty & Reserve Military, Defense Sector employees, NGO employees, and private sector employees who work for companies supplying support to public agencies). This number accounts for approximately one out of every five employees in the U.S.

This tempers the FBI’s figures, by showing that 20% of all employees (public employees) account for 13% of all embezzlement.

What we can take from this is that graft is a universal sin, and that for some reason employees working for the goverment are about 1/3 less likely to embezzle funds.

I know it isn’t a popular notion to think that public employees are, on average, more honest than the average private employee (or company owner) — but it may be true. Another way of looking at these figures is to attribute the lower embezzlement numbers among public employees to the higher degree of scrutiny & oversight that occurs in public agencies.

EDITOR NOTE–Dean, there is another option as well: The private sector does a BETTER job of oversight since law enforcement has no way of filing charges unless the private business makes the report…it isn’t like speeding that is detected by the coppers. Like speeding, the area of most enforcement shows up in reports as the place with the most offenses–which may or may not be true.

Another way of explaining the apparent lull in public embezzlement (compared to the private sector), is a sociological one.

In a private business, there’s a greater appreciable disparity between haves (owners) & have-nots (employees) — to say nothing about the amount of skimming that occurs in the banking and stock trading industries (theft from clients).

There’s nothing quite as tempting an emotion as envy (in the 80’s it was practically de reguere).

In government jobs there’s just not that much envy going around. Unfortunately, for those public employees who do succumb to theft — it’s usually for reasons of sloth.

Zippo,

Which US President hasn’t done what you’ve described?

Strike that, what US President (since federal income tax was established) hasn’t?

So the “haves vs. have-nots” isn’t it. Perhaps “do as I say not as I do” is the model in force? Or perhaps enforcement only occurs below a certain level?

The number of people doing something wrong is not justification, it is rationalization.

No need to be a partisan hack when both major teams are dirty as stink.

(I don’t care for Canyon County much either because of the substantially higher property taxes.)

No, the point I was driving home here was; this is no small problem in this country, and we should not stop with the small fish. Nor can we expect the people to have trust in our government when the leaders so blatantly collect ill gotten gains. The higher the level of the leader, the more their take seems to be. Nope certainly not all in government, but clearly there are too many, and too many looking the other way or even helping while they are charged with policing the public trust or as an officer of the court.

I worry for the day when an election can be interfered with more than just a few votes for the same reasons.

(Did that US house member use freezer paper so the 100’s could still be separated while frozen?)