Thieves among us - did you hear about this?

Recent state audits of Western uncovered upwards of $117,000 that had been stolen from the university by a former employee in the cashier office, according the Seattle P-I today.

The former employee, who was not identified in the audit, was fired in August 2005 after the suspected thefts were uncovered, a state audit of the university said.

The Whatcom County prosecutor charged the former cashier with 11 counts of theft last month, university officials said. The school of about 13,000 students has since changed its cash handling procedures, officials said.

Being a former writer for The Western Front, I hope for their sake and the sake of the student body that they are onto this story.

I haven't seen it till now. Why?

Either this information has been squelched for a while now (the charges were filed last month), or it hasn't been covered well by local media, or....maybe I'm just not as good at noticing what's going on--which is somewhat scary because I know I hear and read and know about what's happening more than the average student (who should know about this).

One way or another, we had all better stay tuned.