State Auditor David Vaudt says a special investigation by his office has found a husband and wife mismanaged nearly $67,000 in taxpayer money in the eastern Iowa town of Monticello. The state audit was requested after concerns were raised about the salary paid to Debi Oldaker-Tedrow, who served as the Quality Assurance Coordinator for the Monticello Ambulance Service. Vaudt says the investigation found Oldaker-Tedrow received nearly $30,000 in salary that she was not entitled to because she was actually working for a private hospital or taking flying lessons during the time she claimed to be working for the city of Monticello.
Oldaker-Tedrow’s supervisor was Larry Tedrow. "Her husband was the former ambulance director, so obviously he was responsible for supervising his own wife – who wasn’t working during the time she claimed to be working," Vaudt said. Tedrow and his wife were both fired in November of 2007, after the city administrator hired a private investigator to monitor Oldaker-Tedrow’s schedule.
Vaudt also reports that the city was unable to collect nearly $28,000 for billings for ambulance services because the billings were incorrect or not filed in a timely manner by Oldaker-Tedrow. The investigation also found just over $7,600 of improper disbursements from the Monticello Emergency Management Team. Tedrow and his wife served as president and secretary, respectively, on that nonprofit organization.
Copies of the report have been filed with the Division of Criminal Investigation, the Jones County Attorney’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office.