by:  Diane Benjamin

Being willing to expose government abuse only leads to information on more government abuses.

I got a call this morning from a gentleman who filed a Small Claims Court suit against 2 contractors.  He paid all the required fees at the County, including postage to have 2 summons mailed to the contractors.

2 weeks later he got a call from his local “small town” post office.  The postage had been taped to the envelope, that’s illegal because the stamps can’t be cancelled.  Why his address was used as the return address is another mystery.   I spoke to the postmaster, and, as both the customer and I assumed, the county had tried to re-use postage that hadn’t been cancelled correctly – sometimes the machines don’t fully cancel the stamps.  Obviously, that leads to the question of who pocketed the money paid to mail the envelope?  Does this happen a lot?

This isn’t the first problem with postage at the County.  A few years ago, employees claimed they paid the mailroom for personal postage, but there was no authorized procedure in the mailroom for collecting money.  It looks a lot like somebody pocketing what employees paid and then using County postage.   Peggy Ann Milton was accused of using postage for personal use, but she was found not guilty. Maybe the County Auditor is looking in the wrong place!

Is anybody at the County watching the pennies, or just the big stuff?