They hired men with the scythes so sharp…

I previously noted the city of Galveston placing the entire traffic division on paid administrative leave.

By way of the HouChron, the other shoe has dropped: the former head of the division has been indicted on charges of forging time sheets and misappropriation of funds by a public official. Another employee in the division has also been indicted on the same charges.

The HouChron story is a little short on detail: the Galveston Daily News is better. The former division head “was paid more than $390,000 during the last four years in overtime in addition to his $48,279 salary”, while the other employee took in “$37,280 in overtime from 2009 to 2011 above his $40,059 salary”. The specific charges:

[Michael N.]Dricks [the former division head], a former senior traffic technician, is accused of unlawfully appropriating less than $1,500 from Eric Wilson, the city’s assistant city manager, between Dec. 16 and Jan. 7.
The second indictment against Dricks accuses him of making a false entry in a governmental record, a request for 10 hours of overtime, on Dec. 18.

Letroise, a former traffic signal technician II, was similarly accused of unlawfully appropriating less than $500 from Wilson in the same timetable and of falsifying a government record in requesting three hours of overtime on Dec. 23, the indictments state.

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