No office supplies here!

More details today from the City Hall scandal of the month: Most of a $66,000 budget increase in the mayor pro tem's office went to employees' paychecks, not office supplies.

Rosita Hernandez, the office manager, told a City Council committee last summer that she needed the sixty-six grand for paper, ceremonial envelopes and document storage (which makes Houstonist wonder just how much ceremonial envelopes cost these days — good thing we don't have to use 'em). Council approved the increase and the pro tem employees proceeded to give themselves 88 percent of it — about $58,000 — in the form of unauthorized raises and bonuses. And that's not all: The office has run through all but $56,000 of its $326,000 budget so far this fiscal year, and there are still more than four months left before more money comes in. The information raises questions about why no one noticed the budget irregularities — not even when monthly spending reports were due.

Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado, who oversees the office in addition to her elected job representing council District I, says she wasn't alerted.

"That's why they call them checks and balances," said Marc Campos, Alvarado's political consultant.

He questioned why city finance officials didn't say, 'Hey, we might have a problem there.'"

The pro tem employees and Judy Gray Johnson, the city's finance and administration director, declined comment, and Frank Michel, a spokesman for Mayor Bill White, said the mayor is going to stay out of investigators' way. He wondered, though, how the pro temmers planned to get by during the rest of the year: "If these people were siphoning money for unauthorized bonuses and raises, what was their plan for the final quarter, when the reality of what was in the account caught up to this?"