Months after costly verdict, Kansas City faces another whistleblower lawsuit
A former Kansas City employee has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the city, another suit alleging mistreatment by city officials just months after a costly verdict in a separate case.
Beth Pauley, a former city performance auditor, alleges in the lawsuit that she faced retaliation and was forced to resign after raising concerns about potential violations by the City Auditor’s Office.
Pauley “was stripped of duties and reprimanded by her employer in retaliation for complaining about violating auditing principles, city ordinances, the City Code of Ethics, and the Missouri Human Rights Act,” according to the lawsuit, filed in Jackson County Circuit Court in October.
The core of Pauley’s lawsuit centers on the interim city auditor, an apparent reference to Marc Shaw, who was appointed by Mayor Quinton Lucas earlier this year after the retirement of longtime Auditor Doug Jones.
The suit alleges that Shaw, who does not have prior audit experience, did not follow proper auditing protocols on multiple occasions.
Kansas City, in a response filed this week, broadly denied Pauley’s allegations. City spokesperson Jackson Overstreet declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing the pending litigation.
A spokesperson for Lucas, in an email, sent The Star a link to a press release announcing Shaw’s appointment as interim city auditor.
“Like any large institution with thousands of employees, the City works hard to reduce the number of employment lawsuits it faces but cannot avoid all,” said spokesperson Megan Strickland. “As a matter of policy, we typically do not comment on pending litigation and will not do so here.”
Pauley, in the lawsuit, argues that she raised a series of concerns to the City Council and human resources about Shaw’s handling of several audits, including “short-circuiting auditing principles.”
Audits should be “truthful, unbiased and thorough,” the lawsuit said. The suit is short on specific allegations, but alleges that some of the audits did not comply with typical standards and potentially undermined “the public interest.”
In the wake of her allegations, the lawsuit said, Pauley was stripped of her duties and faced retaliation from the city. She left her job on Sept. 14, because the city made her position “so unbearable that a reasonable person would terminate his employment,” the lawsuit said.
The allegations come just months after a highly-publicized whistleblower trial — and subsequent $900,000 jury verdict — that revealed the city’s former top executive suggested it was acceptable to lie to news organizations.
Pauley’s lawsuit references an audit the city released in the wake of the trial, which is referred to as a communications audit. Pauley, according to the suit, complained about potential outside influence on the audit, which detailed the ways Kansas City should be more transparent.
“Plaintiff complained about the Interim City Auditor’s approach to a Communications audit, the Interim Auditor’s perceived reluctance to include evidence in the communications audit that would balance the report and dissatisfy the Mayor, the Interim Auditor’s disregard for professional auditing standards that threatens the office’s independence,” the lawsuit said.
When asked about the lawsuit’s reference to Lucas, Strickland declined to weigh in on the allegation in an email to The Star.
“Based upon the pleadings, the Mayor appears to have nothing to do with this cause of action and thus has no comment on specific averments raised in the pleading,” Strickland said. “We cannot speak to claims raising perceived thoughts of others about which he was not aware.”
Pauley also raised concerns about two other audits, according to the lawsuit: a Healthy Homes Rental Inspection Audit and a Women in the Workplace Annual Report.
Lynne Bratcher, Pauley’s attorney, declined to weigh in further on the lawsuit in an email to The Star, citing ethical reasons. Bratcher also represented Chris Hernandez, the city’s former communications official, in his highly-publicized whistleblower lawsuit against the city.
Pauley argues in the lawsuit that she suffered a series of damages as a result of the alleged retaliation, including lost wages, career damage, degradation, humiliation and other losses.
The lawsuit asks a judge to issue Pauley actual and compensatory damages, lost wages, retirement benefits and additional relief.
