Waste of the Day: Puppies With Public Funds
Topline: Susan Noel, the former clerk and treasurer of the Town of Washington, Oklahoma, allegedly used public funds to buy a puppy, sofa, vacuum cleaner, electric dog clippers, and much more.
Nearly a third of the small town’s spending in a four-year period was "fraudulent or unauthorized,” according to a new report by State Auditor Cindy Byrd, who called the scandal “the worst example of board oversight I have seen in my 29 years of government auditing experience.”
Key facts: The audit alleges that Noel stole $676,368 from the town from 2020 to 2024. That included $267,160 used to pay off her and her husband’s personal Bank of America credit cards, $191,777 worth of PayPal payments, and purchases at Lowe’s and Amazon.
Noel also used her town debit card for almost $30,000 of “payments for the purchase, grooming, transportation, and delivery of dogs.”
Other purchases included an espresso machine, a memory foam mattress, and an exercise machine.
She also allegedly made a $2,859 mortgage payment on her house using public funds.
The audit identified more than $40,000 in unauthorized salary payments made to Noel, her daughter, and her son-in-law, who all used to work for the town.
Noel allegedly tried to conceal her spending from Byrd by providing doctored checks and bank records to the state auditor’s office, the report found. She sent images of checks for fences and pumps, but a comparison with official financial records revealed the checks were actually made out to Noel herself.
Washington has only 673 residents and an annual budget of about $800,000. Noel was fired in July 2024 without an official explanation.
Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.
Critical quote: “Even though several of the questionable transactions appeared to have been purposefully hidden from the oversight of [Washington’s Board of Trustees], timely review of bank statements, check registers, or monthly expenditure reports would have revealed many of the questionable transactions,” Byrd wrote in her report.
“In a small town, the lack of limited staff can make it difficult to separate financial duties. That makes strong Board oversight even more important.”
Summary: Taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for someone else’s mortgage, furniture or puppy playtime.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.
