In what is surely to become a screaming nation-wide trend, New Jersey state Governor, Jon Corzine has given fair warning that most likely he'll soon be cutting heads. A report from Reuters News Service, in referencing comments from Barbara Buono, chair of the state Senate budget committee, indicated that Corzine is considering "consolidation scenarios" as remedy for a $2.5 billion state budget shortfall.

It is being speculated that payroll reductions of as many as 3,000 employees might be accomplished through early retirement offerings, but the long term effects of that solution on existing pension funds have yet to be fully examined. Buono told Reuters, "Our understanding is that (Gov. Corzine) doesn't anticipate layoffs." I interpret that to mean the pink slips shall be forthcoming.

Similar scenarios are certain to begin looming across the entire nation as property tax roles begin to feel the affects of massive real estate devaluations. As 2008 property tax bills begin to arrive in the hands of homeowners, there are surely going to be widespread demands for reassessment of properties to properly reflect value losses inflicted over the past 12 months. The cascading effect will mean that municipalities shall soon begin to see decreased funding for local operations. Government employee payroll populations shall soon begin to come under very close scrutiny.

The snowball is just getting started, in New Jersey no less.

What would you do if you got a free paycheck? You didn't do any work for a company that deposited money into your bank account like clockwork... for almost five years. Welcome to Anthony Armatys's world. Anthony accepted a job with telecommunications company Avaya Inc. in 2002. But he changed his mind and never went to work for the company. Yet a recordkeeping error meant that he started receiving regular payroll deposits into his bank account until the error was discovered in early 2007.

All told, he received about $469,000 from Avaya and never whispered a word of it to the company. He also withdrew about $1,900 that was in a company retirement account. Now he's being charged with one count of theft by deception.

What ever happened to doing the right thing? Who in their right mind thinks it's okay to steal money from a company for almost five years? I'm sure there are some who can justify this in their minds... reasoning that the only victim is a big corporation. But we all know it's wrong. Heck, I even give back the money when a cashier gives me a dollar too much change. Where have our morals gone?

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

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