Two managers for the City of Grapevine have left their roles after independent audits found that they may have misused up to $250,000 in city funds.
The audits, carried out by third-party accounting firm Weaver, revealed that Kevin Mitchell and Ruth Chiego allegedly spent up to $186,591 and $69,694, respectively, on personal purchases.
According to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the audit could not determine the exact amount each city employee had used improperly. Auditors classified $118,033 of Mitchell’s spending and $21,831 of Chiego’s as inconclusive because they could not prove the money was used improperly.
The audit also found that another $58,406 spent by the former officials did not have any accompanying documentation.
Weaver analyzed 341 transactions made by Mitchell, the former director of parks and recreation, and reported that 280 either had no business purpose, no documentation, or were inconclusive.
Mitchell, who had worked for the City of Grapevine since 1999, allegedly spent city money on furniture, flights, hotel stays, and tickets to football games. Trips to Lubbock (for Texas Tech games), as well as Georgia, Florida, and Canada were apparently paid for with city funds, and more than $23,000 is said to have been used to buy Apple products.
The former director denied using his city credit card for the Lubbock trips, but whether he rejected any of the other spending allegations is unclear.
According to the Star, Mitchell told auditors that he sometimes broke larger purchases up into smaller transactions to sidestep the city’s approval process.
Auditors at Weaver found Chiego, who had been director of libraries since 2019, had reportedly tampered with the records of at least 94 transactions to make the purchases appear city-related. More than $17,200 of these funds were used to buy gift cards, groceries, clothing, and pool equipment. She is also said to have spent a large sum on Amazon.
Per the Star, Chiego admitted to auditors that those purchases were personal in nature.
City Manager Bruno Rumbelow revealed that he opened the internal investigation after the city finance department notified him of potential fraud in October 2021.
After the audit was completed, Weaver made recommendations to the City of Grapevine regarding ways to prevent such misspending in the future. The suggestions include having all transactions reviewed by a peer, superior, or the finance department and training all employees on the policies for using spending cards provided by the city.
Rumbelow told the Star that Grapevine has implemented all of Weaver’s recommendations.
“There’s no question that we’re disappointed but we’re also really sad over this situation,” the city manager said. “But the important thing is that from an institutional standpoint, we have a responsibility to understand if we had a problem and to adequately and promptly thoroughly address that. And we’re confident we did.”
Ciego resigned and Mitchell retired on February 21, 2022. Both have agreed to pay back the sums that Weaver tied to their personal spending within 9 months. Mitchell is expected to return $33,359, while Chiego will repay $24,916.
According to Rumbelow, there is currently no pending investigation into the matter, provided the two former officials pay the restitution as agreed.