IDABEL – The manager of the McCurtain County Solid Waste Authority and one of his employees are accused of embezzling more than $200,000 of public funds.
A preliminary hearing conference for director James Allen Womack, 53, of Millerton, and his secretary, Shae D. Tubbs, 49, of Idabel, is scheduled on Nov. 20 in McCurtain County District Court.
The charge alleges that over a period of a year and a half – from Jan. 1, 2024, to June 15, 2025 – Womack and Tubbs stole money that was “appropriated by law” but was diverted “by paying themselves and all employees” of the Authority “unearned and unauthorized overtime pay.”
Womack, employed by the solid waste system for 31 years, since Aug. 1, 1994, is free from custody on a $35,000 appearance bond. Tubbs, employed by the system for nine and a half years, since March 2016, was released from custody on a $25,000 appearance bond.
The McCurtain County Commissioners contacted District Attorney Mark Matloff on June 23 about “possible misappropriation of funds” by Womack and Tubbs, an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation special agent related in an affidavit.
Subsequently an OSBI forensic auditor examined payroll data from the Authority and determined that $207,819 of undocumented overtime had been paid during the 18-month period.
Womack, whose base salary was $81,627, received $14,627 in overtime pay, and Tubbs, whose base salary was $53,880, gifted herself $9,655 in overtime pay, the auditor calculated.
Each employee of the Solid Waste Authority “would receive eight hours of overtime on the first pay period and 16 hours of overtime on the last pay period,” the auditor discovered.
During an interview, Tubbs said overtime was paid to all of the employees “to make it fair,” the OSBI agent reported.
“None of this overtime was documented on the employee’s timesheets,” and some of the overtime was paid on holidays “when employees were off and the office was closed,” the auditor added.
The OSBI agent said he conducted three interviews with former board members, and none of them “recalled authorizing Tubbs to pay employees overtime for hours not worked and on holidays not worked.”
Furthermore, the OSBI forensic auditor said McCurtain County Solid Waste Authority employees were “salaried employees” who received “a set amount per pay period.”
The auditor concluded that the employees “appeared to be ‘exempt’ employees.” According to the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, “an exempt employee was not entitled to … overtime pay due to their specific job duties and salary level.”
All of these issues “constitute the crime of embezzlement,” the investigator said. The felony charge was filed Sept. 16.
In 2020, per capita income in McCurtain County was the fourth lowest in Oklahoma and just 58% of the national average, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.