[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

This $128,000 cost to the City was the mistake of one person. The ‘solution’ that is being put in place will bog-down the process and cost the City a lot more money annually than was lost in this incident. The City has made a knee-jerk reaction to someone’s mistake.

As for the Treasurer, she, and everyone involved, knows that she made a mistake. Although I don’t think that one incident should define her career’s achievements, I await to see how she and the City resolve the problem - that answer will tell us everything we need to know about her.

Will she make the City whole again by taking part of her severance pay* (I believe she is due to retire in a couple of months) to repay the City for her mistake? Or will the City simply write off the loss (since it is ‘only’ tax-payer money, and there is plenty more where that came from) and ignore that someone made a big mistake that cost the City a lot of money?

Historically, I feel that the City has gone the easy route and left the tax-payers on the hook for staff mistakes. I am hoping that the Treasurer has enough personal integrity to make up for her mistake. This is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate that there are consequences to making mistakes; and that people should take responsibility for their actions.

Sure, everyone makes mistakes; but it is how that person corrects the results that is important.

[* And I don’t mean that the City should give her a ‘bonus’ in her severance of $128,000 so that she can sign back over to the City.]

I think it is a dangerously slippery slope to expect everyone to be personally liable for mistakes made at work.