By LEONARD GRAY

LULING – The investigation of payroll irregularities at St. Charles Parish Hospital, first reported Dec. 11, is taking more time than anticipated, the facility’s administrator said this week.

“Nothing has really changed,” administrator Fred Martinez said.

A female payroll clerk of 10 years at the Luling hospital is under investigation for payroll theft at the facility. She has been terminated from her job for inappropriate access of the hospital’s computer system, Martinez stated, and added, “The hospital has a zero-tolerance policy on that.”

The clerk’s identity has not been made public, the administrator continued, because the investigation is still ongoing and, he added, “We don’t have the concrete evidence.”

But, “We have reason to believe she did what she did,” Martinez said, and continued, “Ninety-nine to 100 percent of what she did was done through the computer system.”

No arrest has been made as of press time.

Martinez went on to say, “Giving the name out right now without the investigation completed is just not the right thing to do.”

Martinez said after the first week and a half of the investigation by Greg Romig, of the accounting firm of LaPorte, Sehrt, Romig and Hand, that it would take as much as a month to uncover the evidence being sought.

“Everyone’s anxious to have some conclusion on this,” Romig said, and added their investigation should be done by late January or early February.

“We were about midway through, then we hit a snag with the holidays,” Romig added.

Martinez said in a Dec. 11 press release that irregularities were uncovered through a routine accounting audit conducted during the previous week.

Once the matter was uncovered, the full investigation began Dec. 6 and, Martinez alleged, an admission was made by the employee in question.

The administrator added he could not give specifics as to how much the employee is believed to have stolen or how long it had been going on.

Certain evidence was turned over to the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office and to the 29th Judicial District Attorney’s office in Hahnville for further investigation. Maj. Sam Zinna is in charge of the sheriff’s investigation.

Martinez added the evidence uncovered during the audit has been turned over to the state Legislative Auditor as well, and to the accounting firm, with instructions to begin a full investigation into this matter, plus a full analysis of the hospital’s payroll practices.

Martinez added the hospital may recover much of the lost funds through their insurance coverage.

However, until the investigation is complete, the administrator said there will be no further comment on the incident, and the Sheriff’s Office confirmed there would be no comment, as the investigation is active at this time.