Tarrant County grand jury asked to investigate spending abuses by Grapevine ex-staffers
The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s White Collar Crime and Public Integrity Team has asked a grand jury to investigate the alleged theft of funds from the city of Grapevine by two former employees.
The move comes after audits found two former department heads spent thousands in taxpayer dollars on personal shopping and travel.
Residents packed the City Council chambers for a public meeting on Tuesday as City Manager Bruce Rumbelow described the improper use of city credit cards and his investigation into the misspending. Mayor William D. Tate said he and the council want more information on what happened.
Neither Kevin Mitchell, the former parks and recreation director, nor Ruth Chiego, who was director of libraries, has been charged with crimes. As much as $250,000 was flagged as potentially misspent by the two directors, according to the audits, but the investigation by an outside firm couldn’t reach conclusions about much of that sum. Both left their jobs Feb. 21.
Grapevine City Council member Sharron Rogers hadn’t heard about the district attorney’s investigation request until reached by the Star-Telegram Wednesday afternoon, and said she was “surprised.” Since she didn’t have details, she said she couldn’t comment.
Tate and Rumbelow couldn’t be immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.
In an email statement, City Attorney Matthew Boyle said the city welcomed the review and would cooperate with investigators.
“The City has been and will continue to be transparent through the process as exemplified by last night’s public hearing,” Boyle wrote.
Council member Chris Coy said Wednesday that he looked forward to the grand jury findings. He said the city had a good start to the process during its meeting Tuesday evening, but said there was more ground to be covered.
Mitchell, who started working for the city in 1999, was found to have questionably spent up to $186,591. That included personal hotel stays, flights, tickets to football games and more than $23,000 in Apple products, according to the audit findings first reported by the Star-Telegram in early March.
Mitchell told audit investigators that he would sometimes split the transactions to keep them below $3,000, which would circumvent the city’s expense approval process. In one such example from late 2020, Mitchell spent a total of $10,137 at the luxury home furnishings store Restoration Hardware but broke the purchases into four transactions.
Chiego, who was hired in 2019, spent up to $69,694, including purchases of lawn furniture for her house and thousands of dollars at Amazon, according to the audits.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Grapevine council member Leon Leal asked Rumbelow why the spending wasn’t caught earlier. The city manager’s response, “because we trusted them,” was met with groans from the crowd.
Rumbelow says he learned of the problem in October, after an auditor in city hall noticed unusual spending on Mitchell’s and Chiego’s cards. Rumbelow said he opened an internal investigation and hired a third-party firm, Weaver, to do its own audit.
Both employees continued in their jobs during the investigations. Chiego resigned Feb. 21; Mitchell went into retirement the same day, Rumbelow said.
The city manager didn’t tell the council about the investigation until the employees left. Leal, the councilman, said Rumbelow shouldn’t have gone about the investigation alone.
Both former directors have agreed to pay back the amount that the auditor tied to personal spending. Mitchell has already paid back his $33,359. Chiego has until October to pay back $24,916.
But a point of contention during Tuesday’s meeting is exactly how much money was misappropriated.
The audits say the precise amounts each director used for personal purchases is unknown. The auditor classified $118,033 of Mitchell’s spending, and $21,831 of Chiego’s spending, as inconclusive, meaning auditors couldn’t determine whether the money was used properly.
Another $58,406 combined didn’t have any documentation.
The unknown purchases are something the mayor questioned Rumbelow about repeatedly.
“I think the report is incomplete and misleading,” Tate said, adding that he wants to know specifically why some purchases couldn’t be determined to be personal or business expenses. “We have to know more.”
Eleven residents spoke during the meeting, all of them saying they were angry that the council wasn’t informed earlier of the investigation and that city policies didn’t prevent the misspending. Some said authorities should pursue a criminal investigation, and the city should have notified the Tarrant County district attorney.
“A simple Google search turns up that theft in Texas of an amount between $30,000 and $150,000 is a felony in the third degree,” Anne Lapkin told the council. “How is it that the thieves were not referred to the district attorney?”
Her comments were met with applause from the audience.
Rumbelow told the Star-Telegram earlier this month that his office now follows several recommendations from the auditor, such as requiring all spending transactions to be reviewed by a peer or superior. Transactions made by department heads will be reviewed by another department head or someone from finance.
Council members on Tuesday questioned a representative from the city’s outside audit firm of Patillo, Brown and Hall. Todd Pruitt told them misspending such as this wouldn’t be caught by regular yearly audits because the scope of what the firm looks at is much larger than individual expenses. He suggested the city fill the position of its internal auditor, since the person who first flagged the misspending in October has since left the job.
This story was originally published March 16, 2022 at 2:09 PM.
