News brief: Tenino woman charged with stealing overtime pay from DOT

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

A Tenino woman who worked for the state Department of Transportation is facing criminal charges in connection with allegations she collected more than $74,000 in unearned overtime compensation by altering her time cards, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Rachel Taylor of Tenino was charged with four counts of first-degree theft and was arraigned in Pierce County Superior Court on Thursday, according to a news release from the state agency.

One of Taylor’s responsibilities as she worked as a secretary at a WSDOT Pierce County construction office was entering the office’s time sheets into the timekeeping system, according to the news release.

Her overtime was flagged by management during a routine review last year and the agency’s internal audit division followed up finding issues during 2007 through last year, according to Lloyd Brown of WSDOT.

She resigned last year instead of being fired, Brown noted.

A civil suit seeking restitution for the state is underway in Thurston County Superior Court, according to Brown.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 5th, 2010 at 11:23 am and is filed under News briefs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “News brief: Tenino woman charged with stealing overtime pay from DOT”

  1. Dan Regine says:
    Tuesday, August 30, 2011 at 8:56 am

    If this department had a modern http: //www. aditime. com/payroll-auditing-preparing-payroll-audit system set up and in place, this never would have happened. I’m sure they made big changes within the departments with time management.