It Was Only $10

When someone tells you it’s only chump change and not a big deal I am going to tell you to listen. In 2007, within one year of Jessica Warner-Reed starting as a bookkeeper at Janesville Craig High School, she took $10 and “no one noticed.” $10 was a little bit more than she was paid per hour. Now she has plead out to stealing over $300k from the school over a 9 year period. Janesville Police Chief Dave Moore Moore said the amounts she took got larger and more frequent over the years.

I have a friend who owned a small family business. She noticed the admin “overbought” when she went to Costco. When brought to the other family member’s attention it was dismissed. He said it was an honest mistake and no big deal. He did not want to be bothered with such miniscule problems. The admin said she would pay it back. A half million dollars later it was never paid back. In that case she had a gambling problem.

Warner-Reed spent the money on clothes, furnishings and other things to “live outside her means.” The money she stole paid Warner-Reed’s housing expenses, clothing, furnishings, pet care and “taking care of the family,” but no obviously extravagant spending, according to Janesville Police Chief Dave Moore said. The total amount they were able to prove in the investigation was $303k however the prosecuting attorney thinks that number is low.

Lesson for the day: no amount of money stolen is too small to not pay attention to. It’s a slippery slope.