Canadian Labour Reporter

7 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2017 CANADIAN LABOUR REPORTER NEWS money, fill out deposit envelopes and return them to the head sec- retary, who double checks that the amount indicated on the en- velope matches the amount in it. She then creates e-receipts within an e-fund to deposit the money in the bank. Dwyer was not supposed to collect money from parents, but rather direct them to the appro- priate teachers. The school had no safe, so Dwyer kept the envelopes with money in a locked drawer. On her lunch breaks, student helpers would stay at the office desk. Missing money In September 2012, one of the teachers received a printout of her accounts and saw that her class was credited with $475 paid. This didn't seem right to her, so she went back and calculated what had actually been raised. She be- lieved the amount should have been $586. The teacher reported the dis- crepancy to the principal and was told the school would cover any supplies she needed to buy. The missing money was never found. The district business admin- istrator and an auditor were brought in to assess the situa- tion, and they found undated and unsigned deposit envelopes that had been filled out by Dwyer and didn't correspond to the e- receipts. However, the review couldn't determine whether Dwyer had taken any of the money, since the teachers obtained the money and put it in the deposit envelopes that went to the bank. The school division's HR of- ficer conducted a review. Class lists, e-receipts, and deposit slips were reviewed and the HR officer found a total of $2,268 was unac- counted for, including $610 which Dwyer had handled and either is- sued manual receipts or wrote on deposit envelopes herself. Dwyer couldn't explain the discrepancy between monies recorded as re- ceived and the actual amounts de- posited, but said she didn't know what she received and she "just wrote what she was told to write." Dwyer also said she didn't fully understand what she was doing and things were a mess, but she didn't admit to taking the money. The school division decided not to go to the police as it didn't think it could get the money back. It also believed Dwyer stole all the money, but could only tie her directly to the $610 she directly handled and apparently didn't de- posit. Dwyer was informed on Jan. 22, 2015, that she was suspended without pay for six months. When she returned to work, she would be demoted to a lesser clerk posi- tion and placed at a location where she wouldn't handle cash, and she wouldn't be considered for a pro- motion for five years. In addition, she would have to complete a basic accounting course before being considered for a promotion. The school division also re- quired Dwyer to pay back the missing $610 it felt she was direct- ly linked to. Dwyer's union, the Winnipeg Association of Non-Teaching Em- ployees (WANTE), challenged the discipline, arguing there was no proof she was responsible for any of the money shortages and the system for keeping track of payments was flawed. Arbitrator Michael Werier found that the school division's case against Dwyer was based en- tirely on circumstantial evidence from school records, requiring a consistency between the circum- stances and the alleged miscon- duct to effectively rule out any other conclusion. Werier pointed out that the school division issued a six- month suspension rather than termination despite the fact Dw- yer denied stealing the money from the beginning. This was somewhat odd, since "a denial is usually taken as a strong indication of a lack of via- bility of a future ongoing employ- ment relationship," said Werier. In addition, Werier called into question the strength of the school division's convictions on the alleged misconduct since it only sought restitution of less than one-third of the money that it claimed Dwyer stole. It took nearly two years for the school division to investigate and determine the discipline, which also raised questions about the school division's certainty on Dw- yer's culpability, said Werier. Tracking system unreliable The arbitrator found that the process for submitting money to Dwyer with deposit slips and en- velopes was not consistent and different people used different procedures. Given the number of incomplete deposit envelopes, multiple receipt books, and miss- ing documents, it was difficult for the arbitrator to see how the school division arrived at the sum of $2,268 as the amount missing from the accounts, and also how it could be pegged on Dwyer. In fact, the school division really only pegged $610 of it on Dwyer, and that wasn't definite due to the same documentation issues. Werier found Dwyer was straightforward with her ques- tioning and, although she couldn't explain the discrepancies, she of- fered her best guess regarding in- accurate lists and receipts. In addition, Dwyer was over- whelmed with the financial as- pects of her position, which could lead to mistakes, according to Werier. "I agree with the union that the system was broken from the be- ginning and it is hard to draw con- clusions from evidence presented from this type of broken system," said Werier. The fact Dwyer borrowed money shortly before the miss- ing money was discovered didn't mean much, as she paid it back the following week, Werier found in upholding WANTE's grievance. The Winnipeg School Division was ordered to rescind the sus- pension, remove it from Dwyer's employment record, and reim- burse her for loss of benefits and salary. For more information see: • Winnipeg School Division and WANTE (Dwyer), Re, 2016 Car- swellMan 539 (Man. Arb.). < Accusations pg. 1 School took almost 2 years to discover money was missing Photo: Syda Productions (Shutterstock)

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