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Audit concludes that more than $4,000 unaccounted for. DA has been contacted.
A Luzerne County Controller’s Office audit of prior years has concluded that more than $4,000 is missing from the county Prothonotary’s Office, county Controller Walter Griffith said Friday.
The office is discussing the audit with the county District Attorney’s Office, which is investigating terminated prothonotary clerk Pamela Yanac, Griffith said.
County District Attorney Jacqueline Musto Carroll said Friday that her office continues to investigate.
County Prothonotary Carolee Medico Olenginski fired Yanac in January.
Prothonotary solicitor Sam Stretton said the termination was based on “issues involving Yanac’s handling of certain funds.” He said Medico Olenginski had received information that Yanac had signed a confession acknowledging that she took money from the office. Yanac, who could not be reached for comment Friday, had been suspended without pay since Dec. 18. County officials wouldn’t say whether the suspension had any connection to allegations of missing money in the office.
Medico Olenginski immediately questioned the matter when she took office on Jan. 4, saying Yanac should not continue receiving health benefits during the suspension. Yanac waived her right to a termination hearing, giving Medico Olenginski the right to terminate her, Stretton said. Medico Olenginski sent Yanac a certified letter informing her of the termination. Former prothonotary Jill Moran hired Yanac in January 2004, and her annual pay was $24,144. Griffith, who took office the same day as Medico Olenginski, had assigned his deputy controller and senior auditor to complete an audit of the office so the District Attorney’s Office would know how much money was missing.
Medico Olenginski, who had served as prothonotary from 1998 to 2002, has said she discovered that Moran stopped a security measure that could have detected at least some of the alleged missing money. Medico Olenginski said the missing money is believed to have been in the office’s passport division. When Medico Olenginski was prothonotary, she had required three receipts for passport transactions. One receipt was given to the customer for proof of payment. The second went in the register to back up the deposit. The third went in a log book of all passport transactions, filed in sequential order. If a passport transaction was voided for any reason, all three receipts had to be filed in the log, Medico Olenginski said. That way, an employee could not give a customer a receipt, pocket the money and make the record look as if the transaction was voided, she said. Medico Olenginski instructed her staff to return to the three-receipt system. Moran resigned from the prothonotary seat in March 2009 because of an agreement with federal prosecutors connected to the county corruption probe.
Yanac’s departure created a vacant clerk position in the office.
Medico Olengenski has hired Joseph Gallamo, assigning him to organize records.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union has filed a grievance over that hiring, challenging the way the position was presented to furloughed employees who may be interested. Medico Olenginski said she followed union rules and is contesting the grievance.