Payroll Officer Admits Timecards Falsified Workers Overpaid $15,000, But No Charges Are Expected

A prosecutor says laws were broken when a state employee falsified timecards to pay state Liquor Dispensary workers $15,000 more than they were entitled to.

But the Ada County prosecutor’s office does not intend to file charges because officials say they do not believe they could win a guilty verdict from a jury. One reason is that dispensary administrators reportedly knew their payroll officer was changing timecards and granting employees more vacation pay than allowed.

A report released by the attorney general’s office Monday accuses the payroll officer, Margo Edmiston, of submitting falsified timecards.

Edmiston admits changing timecards in 1993 and 1994. She says she stopped doing so in 1995 as soon as she learned it was against the law.

Edmiston, who continues to do payroll work at the dispensary, also says she was set up by her former supervisors.

The yearlong attorney general’s investigation found 196 occasions when timecards of 33 dispensary employees were falsified or altered.

State law limits the number of vacation hours state employees can accrue before the hours are lost. According to the report, Edmiston changed timecards to pay employees for vacation hours they did not take.

Edmiston says she checked with the state controller’s office, through an intermediary, about whether compensating workers in this way is allowed. She says she was told that the controller’s payroll specialist, Peggy Haar, would allow it. But Haar says she never gave such permission.

The investigatory report and March 1994 correspondence between Haar and a Liquor Dispensary manager suggest administrators - including former superintendent Dean Summers - were aware of the false timecards for at least nine months and did not put a stop to them.

According to the report, Summers said he took no action because Edmiston was involved in a grievance filed against his administration.

But Edmiston tells a different story. She says Summers had a grudge against her so he allowed her to continue a practice he knew would cause her trouble.