The West Wing called it throwing out the trash: release of information on Friday. In this case, it’s not just Friday but also the Friday hurricane Earl was supposed to hit and before a long weekend. So it’s really trash day – and Norfolk didn’t disappoint.
According to The Virginian-Pilot, five people have been fired or forced out of the Community Service Board as the result of their knowledge of a worker who was paid for 12 years but never came to work.
At a news conference, CSB Executive Director Maureen Womack said the agency found no evidence that anyone other than the employee, Jill McGlone, received any of the salary while not showing up for work. But the five staff knew all along that McGlone was being paid without working.
Somebody tell me: why in the heck would you cover up something like this, especially if you weren’t benefiting from it?
In the words of another infamous character, Forrest Gump, “Stupid is as stupid does.”
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
To put at risk a six figure salary to cover for someone making $29,000 does not make sense. I hope there is more reporting on this story, and a full investigation initiated by the city administration and council. Also, will the fired employees receive retirement and health benefits? There has to be more to this story.
Agree, has to be more to the story. Even moreso since the salary grew from $15k to $29k during the no show employment. Someone is hiding something for someone.
Think is says something that the majority of the time this went on was under the leadership of Mr. Pratt, but he says he is unaware of how it could happen. That seems odd, but I hope it is true.
The linked story has been updated since I originally posted this Friday afternoon. There are a few more details, but still not enough to justify the bizarre behavior for 12 years. The employee was placed on leave with pay at the beginning, but why it continued for 12 years makes no sense.
I’m sure there is more to come.
Dollars to doughnuts, when the CSB claims that there’s no evidence to suggest that any other employees shared the money McGlone had collected over the past 12 years, that’s just some lawyer somewhere telling them to avoid interjecting themselves into an inevitable criminal case and possibly getting hit with a slander suit. Someone’s been filling her time sheets over the past twelve years for love, money or blackmail. McGlone is almost certainly going to have at least one co-defendant when she’s eventually arraigned in Federal court.
The really intriguing question that will result in the best conspiracy theories will be about whether the scope of the FBI’s investigation will include the council-appointed board members, because that’s the avenue by which the scope can expand to include the council members who appointed them in the event that there’s any evidence that one of the board members knew about and benefited from the continued employment of the phantom employee.