Caltrans Made her Scapegoat, Ex-Cashier Says

Linda Silverthorn said she felt private vindication when she filled in last August while the primary San Diego-area cashier for the California Department of Transportation was on jury duty.

But in less than a day on the job she had lost two years earlier, Silverthorn, 34, became frustrated with the “mess” in the cashier’s office and vented her anger to a supervisor.

Now, Silverthorn, fired along with a fellow worker earlier this month after the highly publicized discovery that $13,600 in state funds was missing, is complaining that state officials are using the problems and rules violations she called to their attention as a basis for her dismissal.

Silverthorn was never popular with her co-workers, but many of them also say she is being unjustly persecuted. There is concern among the 550 employees at Caltrans’ district office in Old Town that the firing of Silverthorn and chief cashier Karen Knight, 34, and the related demotion of Deputy District Director Michael Northeimer, 45, were “railroaded” by Caltrans officials in Sacramento, embarrassed by recent disclosures regarding payroll padding and travel expense abuses.

Caltrans employees interviewed by The Times, all requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals, said office morale has never been worse than since the accusations on the missing funds were first publicized.

Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), a persistent Caltrans critic, said he is concerned “about the apparent double standard” under which low-level cashiers are fired while some high Caltrans executives, including state Transportation Director Leo J. Trombatore, accused of questionable expense claims, have only been made to pay back the money.

However, William R. Dotson, Caltrans’ San Diego-based district director, insists the firings were justified even though he admits there is no direct evidence Silverthorn or Knight stole the $13,600 so far discovered missing from rents, fees and sales of books, pamphlets and road plans. “What you can do is speculate, but charges can’t be based on speculation,” Dotson said, adding that, nevertheless, the firings are final.

The investigation by the San Diego County District Attorney’s office is on hold until Caltrans’ officials come up with evidence that points toward theft.

“We have received some audit materials from Caltrans, and we expect to receive some more,” said Steve Casey, special assistant to Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller. “ . . . We don’t expect it here day after tomorrow.”

State officials said that even if audits now under way fail to yield proof that Silverthorn or Knight were dishonest, the firings can be sustained on grounds of inefficiency and “inexcusable neglect of duty.”

They added that Northeimer was demoted because of “inadequate supervision” of the cashier’s office since former accounting department head Robert Henselmeier retired in December, 1984.

Accounting practices had become sloppy, the accused employees and Caltrans officials agree. Bank deposits were delayed for days, sometimes weeks, in violation of what Caltrans says were written rules. And, Silverthorn and Knight admit that they cashed personal checks for themselves and fellow workers.

But Silverthorn said personal checks were also cashed for Caltrans supervisors, who condoned the practice. Silverthorn, and several accounting employees, said that Henselmeier had cashed checks and frequently borrowed $50 bills from office accounts when he went to lunch with visiting officials from Sacramento. Silverthorn said that Bruce Gilbertson, a Sacramento-based accounting official who was “loaned” to the district after Henselmeier retired, witnessed checks being cashed for office employees.

Gilbertson, citing a department directive, declined to be interviewed.

Dotson said Caltrans investigators interviewed Henselmeier and were satisfied that accounting rules were followed when he was in charge. But Henselmeier, in a recent interview with The Times, said while he never cashed personal checks, he occasionally cashed Caltrans expense reimbursement checks, “a borderline” practice that “perhaps stretched the rules a little bit.”

Henselmeier, with Caltrans 22 years, said the firings seemed “a little premature” and “stupid.” He said if money is missing, it is probably the result of staffing reductions that led to elimination of controls.

Norma Moreno, Caltrans chief of financial operations, said in an April 3 memo to Dotson, obtained by The Times, that “it is physically impossible for one person” to adequately handle all the cashiering chores required under the system being used before the money was discovered missing. Caltrans officials have since split the cashiering function, adding another employee so that cash handling and cash accounting are separate functions.

According to a Caltrans spokesman, the cashier’s office handles three state accounts, which receive a total of more than $250,000 a month. The office also handles payroll advances, expense account advances and reimbursements and issues airline tickets.

Dotson said he is also making certain a top accounting department official will verify that records of all money received, bank deposit slips and cash accounts match in every detail. That was always supposed to be done, but apparently was not, he said.

“Theoretically, if you are following the procedures, there is no way there can be an error,” Dotson said.

Silverthorn and Knight were responsible for 40 bank deposits that came up short between January, 1985, and February, 1986, according to a Caltrans internal audit that was the basis for their dismissal. Caltrans’ audits chief Denny Shields wrote in the report that had they followed procedures outlined in the “State Administrative Manual” and the department’s “Accounting Manual,” the money would not have been missing.

But Silverthorn and Knight claim they never saw either manual.

“It is incredible,” said Craig McMahon, Knight’s attorney. “It is one thing to gauge somebody’s conduct by a set of rules if they have access to . . . those rules. . . . I think they (Caltrans officials) are starting with a faulty premise.”

McMahon said he may advise Knight to sue Caltrans for defamation in addition to contesting her dismissal in a State Personnel Board hearing.

Silverthorn and Northeimer are also appealing the “adverse action,” taken against them.

Although the losses discovered so far are relatively small, considering that the district is currently overseeing more than $175-million in road work contracts, Dotson said the 1,000 Caltrans employees in District 11 are “shocked and embarrassed.”

Silverthorn, a single mother of two who was a state employee for 12 years, said Caltrans’ hasty attempt to blame her has left her broke, with her life shattered. She and her children have moved out of their East San Diego apartment and now share a tiny El Cajon condominium with her sister’s family, she said. She sold a washer and dryer to make last month’s car payment.

The timing of the firing of Silverthorn and Knight and the demotion of Northeimer has heightened suspicions among department workers that Caltrans officials were acting mainly to improve their own tarnished image.

The day before Silverthorn and Knight were suspended last month, transportation director Trombatore sent letters to all 15,000 department employees which began, “It is time to clean house.”

Earlier this month, Gov. George Deukmejian defended Trombatore, saying that Caltrans “has a very excellent reputation . . . I’ve been very satisfied with the steps that he has taken since it has been revealed that a few members of that department have apparently abused their positions.”

Despite the governor’s election-year defense of his transportation chief, the department has suffered a number of recent embarrassments, including the revelation earlier this month that Trombatore had claimed too much in reimbursements for use of his car.

In August, 1985, news stories revealed that a $56,000-a-year Caltrans lawyer had been given a leave of absence to serve a federal prison sentence in San Diego for drug trafficking. Caltrans officials then rescinded the leave and fired him. Department officials said Trombatore never knew the leave had been granted.

In April, news stories charged that some Caltrans employees had boosted their annual income by as much as $56,000 with overtime claims. Caltrans officials said that because of that, and subsequent discoveries regarding expense account abuses, they have fired five employees and ordered a number of reprimands, demotions, suspensions and pay cuts.

Last month, Assemblyman Katz raised concerns about out-of-town living expenses claimed by the No. 2 Caltrans official in Los Angeles, who has since been ordered to repay $6,000.

Five days later, Trombatore issued his “clean house” letter. The following day, Silverthorn and Knight were suspended. Chief Caltrans spokesman Gene Berthelsen said an investigation was begun last year and the timing of their suspensions was coincidence.

However, Caltrans workers in San Diego suspect the events were connected.

“Everybody fears they may be fired tomorrow,” said one four-year employee. Morale is extraordinarily low, another worker said.

And, while many of the employees say they know no more than what they read in the newspaper, several present and former employees familiar with the accounting department say the actions appear to be premature and probably unjustified.

One of the factors employees at the San Diego office suspect is somehow connected to events is the personal relationship between Silverthorn and Northeimer, and their periodic ski trips together. Dotson said he had expressed his disapproval of the relationship to Northeimer, who is married, “a long time before” the problems occurred.

Dotson said Northeimer was demoted from deputy director to right-of-way agent because he didn’t see to it that the cashiering office was properly supervised, but Dotson added that Northeimer’s relationship with Silverthorn was also a factor.

“I think that affected the supervision . . . and the oversight of what happened,” Dotson said.

Tom Adler, an attorney representing Northeimer, refused to discuss his client’s relationship with Silverthorn, which she acknowledges.

But Adler denied that his client should have been aware of problems in the cashier’s office. “He had a management function that did not require him to have day-to-day contact,” Adler said.

Both Northeimer and Knight declined to be interviewed, but, through their lawyers, denied any wrongdoing.

Silverthorn and McMahon, Knight’s lawyer, said mid-level managers at Caltrans were aware of problems in accounting that are now being cited as reasons why she and Knight were fired. Silverthorn said it was her complaint to Northeimer in January that led to the detailed follow-up audit that revealed that money was missing.

“Why would I tell him about the checks if I was stealing money?” Silverthorn asked.

Dotson acknowledges that Northeimer suggested that the more detailed audit be conducted. He said a routine review of the operation, finished late last year, had pointed out some sloppy practices, but not the missing funds. Silverthorn, who once reported a discrimination case in which her own sister benefited by being promoted, had been involved in a series of inter-office squabbles and complaints during her seven years at Caltrans. So it was not out of character for her when she went to her friend Northeimer and suggested further investigation of the cashiering office. She wanted to expose the fact that one accounting employee had cashed several hundred dollars in checks that were being held, allowing “a float.”

Silverthorn said that neither she nor Northeimer suspected state money was missing, and she never mentioned to him that she had complained bitterly to lower-level accounting officials about other sloppy practices several months earlier.

Silverthorn claimed her supervisor “punished me for blowing the whistle” in the discrimination incident by reassigning her from primary cashier to what was essentially a typing job. Because the job change did not involve a reduction in pay, however, Silverthorn said she was determined never to let her supervisors or fellow workers know “they had gotten to me.”

Although she had handled minor cashiering responsibilities from time to time during the two years she was a typist, Silverthorn said her first full-time reassignment in the cashier’s office came when Knight was called for jury duty in August, 1985. Unable to find the necessary paper work for a requested salary advance, that was being requested on her first day back in her old job, Silverthorn said she angrily complained to assistant accounting officer La Retto West.

Silverthorn said the following day, she was summoned in to Gilbertson’s office and complained at length about problems. She said she told Gilbertson:

- That some bank deposits that should have been made daily were being delayed, sometimes several weeks.

- That checks, cash and financial records were left laying out in the open.

- That too many people had access to the cashier’s office and that many had become accustomed to making their own change from petty cash accounts.

- That cash for rents and other payments was being accepted without receipts being issued.

- That combinations to two office safes were kept in an open desk drawer and more than half of the 16 accounting department employees knew the combinations.

The only significant change made as the result of her complaints was that access to the office was limited, and cashiers were reminded that receipts should be written immediately for any cash received, Silverthorn said. Safe combinations have since been changed, but only since the money was discovered missing.

Both West and Gilbertson declined to be interviewed, saying they were following a departmental directive.

“Caltrans lawyers are reluctant to let us discuss any aspect of the case because of the likelihood of litigation,” department spokesman Berthelsen explained. But Berthelsen confirmed Silverthorn had made some complaints and that those had been “considered” during the preliminary hearing over her dismissal.

“She can appeal,” he said.