New London targeted by fraud
By Robert Cloud
Conflict among city administrative staff broke out into the open during a Finance and Personnel Committee meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 4.
“It’s just this continuous battle,” according to Finance Director Judy Radke. “I struggle doing my job every day because I am so nervous about what I’m going to do wrong and what am I doing or what I can or can’t do.”
Radke and Jill Maus, the city’s payroll and HR coordinator, went to the Finance meeting to explain how a criminal intercepted Fire Chief Mark Wilfuer’s direct deposit paychecks from February to September.
Before discussing details of the stolen paychecks, Radke shared her frustrations working for the city of New London.
“We need to go back in time,” Radke said.
When Kent Hager retired as city administrator in May, Radke was interested in being promoted to the position.
“In my opinion, I had enough years of service here. I knew enough about this city,” she said. “A lot of department heads were coming to me with questions about how the city operated.”
Radke said she believes she was not given the opportunity because she is female and she felt the city has been discriminating against her.
She told the committee that two weeks after the new administrator arrived, “I’m charged with harassment.”
Radke said she is no longer certain about her role with the city.
“I have been requested to leave meetings of policies. I have been excluded from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) meetings which is about accounting, which I really need to know because at the end of the year who is going to put all this stuff together.”
How city paychecks were stolen
Maus said the city first became aware there was a problem when Middleton police contacted Wilfuer and said his name appeared on a fraud alert in late September.
“We didn’t know why,” Maus said. “We didn’t understand why his name was coming up.”
Maus said she then received a call from First State Bank in late September that Wilfeur’s direct-deposit paycheck failed to clear because the account was frozen.
In February, someone posing as Wilfuer emailed a city form to Maus requesting that the account number on the direct deposit be changed, Maus said.
“We didn’t know it was an issue because Mark didn’t realize he wasn’t getting the money,” Maus said.
After learning what happened, Maus said she notified Radke.
“Immediately, we went to the city administrator and the mayor,” Maus said.
They also contacted New London police and the city’s insurance company.
“We felt that we had done our due diligence,” Radke said.
She also ensured Wilfeur received the pay that had been stolen from him.
Radke said City Administrator Lou Leone sent her and Maus an email on Thursday, Nov. 14, the day of the Chamber of Commerce’s annual dinner.
“He had a list of information that he wanted right now and it had to be before the end of the day because this was very urgent,” Radke said.
The email sought information about when the theft occurred and “How come you didn’t take it to Finance?”
“My first question was how much was taken and I was told, ‘nothing,’” Leone said, regarding his response upon learning about the payroll problem. “That’s why, when I heard whispers that there was money paid back that I asked questions.”
“I did not say ‘nothing,’” Radke responded.
Leone also said Radke told him Wilfeur “was going to the Police and Fire Commission and explain it simply as an adjustment. This is not an adjustment.”
Special council meeting
On Tuesday, Nov. 19, the Common Council held a special meeting that went into closed session three times.
It was the first time most council members learned about the payroll fraud and that Radke had given Wilfeur the pay he had not received.
According to minutes from the open session, the council voted to authorize Mayor Gary Henke and Finance Committee Chair David Morack to meet with Leone at 9 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 20.
Henke and Morack were also to meet with Radke, City Clerk Jackie Beyer and Director of Public Services Chad Hoerth immediately after meeting with Leone.
The staff meetings were to discuss communications and work relations among city staff.
In a second closed session meeting, the council discussed “Potential failure of a staff member to follow proper fiscal practices for expenditures of city funds and allegations of harassment between staff.”
In open session, the committee voted to have the mayor draft a letter of reprimand to Radke for not informing the Finance Committee or the Common Council prior to deciding to pay Wilfeur.
“The night when you had closed session after closed session after closed session, don’t you think everybody’s wondering ‘What’s going on here?’” Radke said. “We’re going to reorganize. We’re going to take jobs away from you and move them somewhere else. Don’t you think that everybody’s on pins and needles in our organization right now?”
Henke responsed that decisions regarding reorganization had been put on hold.
“A lot of us didn’t know what was going on before that closed session meeting and afterwards I walked out of here saying, ‘What the hell just happened?’” Ald. John Faucher said at the Dec. 4 meeting. “I felt like I was bamboozled a little bit.”
Faucher questioned the lack of information given to the committee during the closed session meetings.
He noted that Wilfuer met with the Police and Fire Commission to explain what happened on Nov. 18.
“We were not informed (at the Nov. 19 meeting) that anybody went to the Police and Fire Commission,” Faucher said.
Henke said either Finance or the council should have been made aware of the problem earlier.
“When an organization gets defrauded, the governing body needs to know about it,” Henke said. “It should have been brought to the attention of the Finance Committee.”
When asked about the letter of reprimand, Henke said it was in his shredder and would not go into Radke’s personnel file.
Moving forward, Maus said future requests to change accounts for direct deposits will have to be done in person.