So former Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado testified before a grand jury yesterday about the City Hall payroll scandal involving four of her ex-employees who allegedly helped themselves to nearly $200,000 in unauthorized payraises and bonuses — and the panel may hand down indictments in the case as early as tomorrow. Alvarado appeared before the grand jury voluntarily; the four former mayor pro tem employees testified last week under subpoena.
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Results tagged “mayorprotemcarolalvarado”
City Councilwoman and former Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado used at least four city employees to set up meetings with a personal client who has paid her nearly $75,000 in consulting fees since 2002, despite her earlier assertion that she never asked staffers to do non-city work, the Chronicle reports today. Messages from Alvarado's city e-mail account show Alvarado asked city workers to set up meetings on several occasions with San Antonio buinessman Rudy Rodriguez,...
A new development in the invesigation into City Councilwoman and ex-Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado: Prosecutors have subpoenaed records from Alvarado's outside consulting jobs, which we assume is just another part of the Harris County DA's probe. DA investigators have spent the past couple of days in San Antonio and the Austin area subpoenaing documents from a couple of political consulting firms for which she’s done contract work. Alvarado’s personal financial statement on file at...
KHOU has gotten hold of a compilation of documents from the Office of Inspector General's probe into the City Hall payroll scandal, and it looks like temporarily former Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado may have a little explaining to do. Channel 11 points out the e-mail Alvarado was sent warning her about excessive bonuses her pro tem employees were taking, a detail that came out during the ex-employees' hearing on Tuesday.
After a 16-hour hearing and deliberation process, the city's Civil Service Commission upheld the firings of four former mayor pro tem employees accused of taking nearly $200,000 in unauthorized payraises and bonuses, but it cleared two lower-level employees of conspiring to get the bonuses. During the hearing, the ex-employees said former Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado had either personally OK'd, or given them the authority to OK, bonuses and raises far beyond the norm for...
Rosita Hernandez and Christopher Mays, two former mayor pro tem employees accused of taking part in nearly $200,000 in unauthorized payraises and bonuses, are having their say today at a Civil Service Commission hearing. City employees who are dismissed have the option of the appeals hearings, at which they can give reasons they should be allowed to keep their jobs.
Wow — we almost thought we were going to go a week without news of another development in the City Hall payroll scandal. Sure, there was the story of Rosita Hernandez's amazing disappearing GED, but that didn't really count as breaking news. Fortunately, there is something as we close out the week: The FBI has asked for the bank records of former Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado, though DA Chuch Rosenthal said she's not the...
Former Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado was subpoenaed today to appear at a civil service hearing for employees fired in the City Hall payroll scandal A series of empowerment seminars will be held in Houston to urge Katrina evacuees to vote in New Orleans municipal elections If Lockheed Martin gets the contract to develop the next space exploration vehicle, it'll base operations for the project in Houston, the company said today The newest athletic craze...
KPRC is reporting that the DA's investigation into the City Hall payroll scandal has widened to include possible criminal wrongdoing by City Councilwoman and former Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado. Harris County DA Chuck Rosenthal told Channel 2 that there are questions about whether Alvarado told employees in the mayor pro tem office to perform "tasks unrelated to city business." Though it isn't clear exactly what the tasks were, KPRC said they would be illegal if they were done while employees were on the clock with their city jobs.
More developments in the soap opera that is the mayor pro tem's office: Two former employees talked to the media Monday, one who was fired earlier this month for taking what officials say were unauthorized payraises and bonuses and another who was let go months ago under odd circumstances. Christopher Mays, who was among the four pro tem employees dismissed in the payroll scandal, told KPRC yesterday that his signature had been forged several times...
Rosita Hernandez, one of the mayor pro tem office employees who lost their jobs last week over a payroll scandal, appealed her dismissal today, maintaining that she did nothing wrong. As Hernandez's attorney, Walter A. Boyd III, said:
Investigators with the Harris County's DA's office seized more than 15 boxes of records from the mayor pro tem's office Tuesday, the same day an April 2005 memo came to light in which former Pro Tem Office Manager Rosita Hernandez asked then-Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado to approve $5,500 in bonuses. Hernandez and the three other pro tem employees were fired last week for taking $143,000 in bonuses city officials say were unauthorized.
As the four employees in the mayor pro tem's office wait for word today on whether they'll lose their jobs (though KHOU says they already know), there are still questions about exactly how they got away with giving themselves about $200,000 in payraises and bonuses. Yesterday, the attorney for office manager Rosita Hernandez said Hernandez didn't steal taxpayers' money and alleged Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado knew about the raises and bonuses — in other words, if Hernandez goes, it looks like she'll try to take Alvarado with her.
Local TV stations are reoprting that Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado has decided to temporarily step down from her position after the results of an investigation into illegal bonuses and raises her employees took were released today. "I intend to temporarily … step aside from the office of the mayor pro tem pending the outcome of the grand jury investigation," Alvarado said at a press conference this afternoon. Details of the report from the city's...
City Councilwoman and Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado changed her tactic in the city spending scandal today, sending a letter to her District I constituents accepting responsibility for pro tem employees who took illegal bonuses and unauthorized payraises.
City Councilwoman and Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado apologized to her fellow councilmembers today for disruptions the investigation into illegal bonuses in the mayor pro tem's office might have caused. During today's City Council meeting, Alvarado denied again that she knew anything about the four employees who took $130,000 in unauthorized pay bonuses:
Agents from the city Office of the Inspector General raided the office of Mayor Pro Tem Carol Alvarado today, taking equipment and putting employees on administrative leave after the city finance director got reports of payroll irregularities.
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