10 WORKERS OUT AMID TAX OFFICE FRAUD INQUIRY
Leader of motor vehicle office is out, says he was made into a ‘scapegoat.’
Of 19 Travis County tax office employees who were put on administrative leave in the wake of a multiagency fraud investigation, 10 were not cleared to return to work, including the director of the motor vehicle department, Tax Assessor-Collector Bruce Elfant said Tuesday.
Speaking to the Commissioners Court about changes his office has made since the fraud investigation was launched in March, Elfant said Monica Blackwell, a former Texas Department of Motor Vehicles employee who specialized in vehicle title work, has replaced Stanley Wilson as director of the motor vehicle department.
“The good news, if there is any good news in all of this, is that we are so fortunate to have retained Monica Blackwell,” Elfant said. “Monica has spent 30 years in the Department of Motor Vehi-
cles . ... There are probably not too many people in the state who are more knowledgeable and experienced about motor vehicle issues, titling and registration.”
Elfant’s comments come about a month after the Texas Department of Public Safety announced that it had launched a fraud investigation in conjunction with several other law enforcement agencies. Authorities announced they had made seven arrests on charges that included engaging in organized crime, forgery and bribery. Four of those arrested were Travis County tax office employees.
Elfant said nine employees were cleared to resume work and said the county attorney and human resources offices have been working with the 10 employees not returning, including the four arrested.
In an interview with the American-Statesman, Wilson said County Auditor Nicki Riley told him he had the option to resign or retire so he chose to retire. He said Elfant, who delivered the news, told him he had no choice in formulating Riley’s proposition.
“The reason that they gave was that the county auditor did not have confidence in my leadership anymore,” said Wilson, who had been with the county for 25 years before retiring June 1. “I thought it was very unfair, and I explained that to them.”
Wilson said he feels as though he was made into a “scapegoat” for the problems afflicting the tax office. He said his department didn’t have the technological ability or staffing to do an audit that might have detected widespread fraud similar to that discovered by the auditor’s office.
Officials have said an internal audit sparked the criminal investigation and led to the arrests, but the county is refusing to release the audit because the investigation is still ongoing.
“If you do an audit, you can look back and see a pattern of things,” Wilson said. “When you’re doing transactions day-to-day, you can’t see a pattern. You’re taking a customer at face value that he has all information required to do a transaction.”
Riley and Elfant declined to comment about Wilson’s retirement, saying it was a personnel matter.
The motor vehicle division had six positions vacant before the fraud investigation was announced in midMay, and officials will soon be extending offers to six job candidates, Elfant said.
All four of the county’s satellite tax offices have been closed since mid-May, creating hourslong waits for customers at the main office on Airport Boulevard. Elfant told commissioners Tuesday that his goal is to reopen the Pflugerville office by July 25 and said he hopes to open the Oak Hill location shortly after that date.
“Please know that we are very committed to getting our office back to where it needs to be to, where you all will be proud of what we’re doing,” Elfant said. “It’s very frustrating that it’s taking as long as it is, but it’s far more important that we get this done right.”
The satellite offices, which a 2014 county auditor’s risk assessment called out as “high risk” for loss to the county, have been convenient and “good for the customer, but problematic at best from a management point of view,” Elfant said. He said he hasn’t been able to staff the offices well enough to handle customer loads, let alone promote oversight.
In the first interview Elfant had given to reporters since the investigation was announced, he said Tuesday he has been concerned about the lack of oversight in the satellite offices since he came into office in 2012.
Those concerns, he said, led him to consider establishing two, larger satellite offices that would allow for more supervisors at each location, he said.
“We’ve made a lot of progress, but we just didn’t do enough quick enough, unfortunately, and for that I have to take responsibility,” Elfant said.
Elfant said his office is working on a number of initiatives and policies to combat fraud, such as moving from individual clerk tills to a centralized cash register and a numbered queuing system that would prevent customers from seeing the same employee during each visit.