COEUR D’ALENE-- The Kootenai County Sheriff's Department is investigating a Coeur d'Alene city employee for allegedly stealing money. A member of the city's finance department is accused of over-paying herself thousands of dollars.
Detectives spent Tuesday at City Hall going through financial records and interviewing employees. The Coeur d’Alene’s city attorney Mike Gridley said an individual who had worked in the finance department since 2002, stole thousands of dollars from Coeur d’Alene’s general fund.
The individuals name has not been released.
Gridley said, “The person worked in payroll; a very trusted employee was making over-payments to herself into her own account.” Gridley says the city is still trying to figure out just how much this employee stole.
We’re told that the suspect would pay her-self and then change documents so it looked like all the financial records were balanced.
The alleged scheme was uncovered last week when city workers found problems with some numbers while their suspect was on vacation.
Detectives were at city hall Tuesday investigating and say there is a clear paper trail.
The individual is on unpaid administrative leave, and is in the process of getting fired. If charged, she could face felony grand theft.
