Former Columbus Chief Financial Officer Milton Rawle was arrested Monday after being indicted in June for embezzling almost $290,000 from the city between 2016 and 2018 and falsifying documents to conceal the embezzlement, State Auditor Shad White told The Dispatch on Tuesday morning.
The embezzlement charge came to light after a Fiscal Year 2018 audit report of the city revealed several discrepancies in its fiscal management, according to a Tuesday press release from White’s office. Wanda Holley, certified public accountant at Watkins, Ward and Stafford — the firm that conducted the city audit — brought the discrepancies to White’s attention in August 2019, which prompted the investigation, White told The Dispatch on Tuesday.
The audit, conducted in November 2019 and accepted by the city council in July, documents the poor health of city finances during FY 2018 and points out multiple deficiencies, including unapproved money transfers and the city’s failure to monitor the use of public funds, The Dispatch reported.
Rawle — who worked as the city’s CFO between 2013 and 2019 — made unauthorized transfers from the city’s bank accounts between December 2016 and December 2018, which amounted to $288,000, White said Tuesday. To cover his tracks, Rawle is believed to have labeled those unauthorized transactions as “payroll” or “reimbursement” and used “clip art” to alter the city’s bank statements, according to the release. Combined with interest and investigative expenses, Rawle now owes the city $354,896.27, White said.
The 49-year-old CFO resigned in February 2019 after a 16-workday suspension for failing to alert council members of the city’s steep deficit until November 2018. The city operated at a deficit exceeding $800,000 in both FY 2017 and FY 2018, plunging its general fund balance to $2.3 million.
White said state investigators are aware of the city’s deficits. However, the $288,000 was all the money they could prove that Rawle stole from the city.
“We try to identify every single dollar that we can prove was stolen,” White said. “Some of that overspending could have just been, of course, incompetence — spending more money than you have. That’s not necessarily criminal, but it is incompetence. … Sometimes there’s an amount of money that we believe may have been taken, but it’s impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it was taken.”
White added that the amount of money embezzled was “disturbing,” especially in the context of the city’s budget size. The city approved a $24.31 million budget for FY 2018, The Dispatch reported.
“When you are talking about a city missing $288,000, it’s not just how the $288,000 compares to all the other cases we’ve had,” he said. “These are large numbers for the city, so the taxpayers of Columbus have taken a big hit thanks to Mr. Rawle.”
Rawle is now being held at Lowndes County Adult Detention Center after his arrest in Jackson County, White said. If convicted, the former CFO will face up to 20 years in prison and up to $25,000 in fine. Local District Attorney Scott Colom will prosecute the case.
Colom said his priority is to get the money back to Columbus taxpayers as quickly as possible. Rawle will be arraigned sometime this week, Colom said, and if the case is not resolved soon, there will likely be a trial in three months.
“Prosecutors should not go lightly here just because Mr. Rawle is a non-violent offender,” White said in the release. “Mr. Rawle stole much more than many burglars could ever get away with. We shouldn’t treat him differently just because he wore a tie and stole with a pen.”
Mayor Robert Smith said in a Tuesday statement he appreciates the audit and the investigation, which led to Rawle’s arrest. Following Rawle’s resignation, Smith said he and Chief Operations Officer David Armstrong asked White’s office to conduct the investigation, which the city council “fully supported.”
The Dispatch will update this report in Wednesday’s print edition.
Yue Stella Yu was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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