A chilling effect

Stolen HVAC units provide a valuable lesson

Rules and laws aren’t made for the folks who tend follow them. Most of us don’t need a law to prevent us from assaulting a neighbor or stealing a package delivered to someone else’s front porch. The vast majority recognize that the way to settle a dispute isn’t by murdering someone.

It’s not news when people follow the rules, but plenty of ink has been dispensed since the establishment of newspapers on the folks unwilling or incapable of, as some say, staying between the ditches. From time to time, the audacity they show is jaw-dropping.

One of the more recent examples, if everything school officials and police say is accurate, happened in Springdale. A Springdale School District employee responsible for heating and air conditioning installations and maintenance had sparked some curiosity among his fellow workers and superiors. It seemed after the man had been promoted that he was frequently not on the job. A tracking device, according to an affidavit for his recent arrest, was placed on the man’s work truck. Sure enough, according to investigators, he spent a lot of time at locations that had nothing to do with the job the School District hired him to do.

A school official went to one of those locations and found the district employee installing an HVAC system at a house in Rogers, at a time he was working for the district. He was using public school time and equipment for his personal HVAC business, according to authorities. And get this: After the man’s resignation, he acknowledged he’d taken about 10 HVAC units from the district since 2019. The district later determined $99,944 worth of HVAC units and other equipment was

missing.

It’s hard to fathom such impudence, but it seems from time to time such instances arise from folks working in public roles, taking taxpayer dollars as though they’re entitled. Who can forget the county employee who used county materials to build him a nice deck on the back of his house?

It’ll be up to the courts to determine whether this man is guilty of any crimes, but the incident demonstrates why every job and every employee has to be scrutinized, not with unjust suspicion, but with a system of accountability that ensures taxpayers aren’t being taken advantage of.

School officials say they’ve adopted new procedures to protect the district from theft and other such abuses.

As educators are known to say, learning never stops.