PANAMA CITY — Bay County animal shelter volunteers unearthed discrepancies about the head of Animal Control’s educational background, which ended her tenure Tuesday.
Carol Treftz became the third Bay County Animal Control manager to exit in controversy in less than 3½ years. On her employment application she claimed she received a bachelor’s degree, majoring in law enforcement, from Eckerd College in January 1986, but the school has no record of her attendance. She did, however, provide the county with a copy of a diploma that says “Eckerd College” and states she received a bachelor’s degree in sociology in May 1986.
Treftz said she had been duped and took online courses in the mid-’80s to earn the degree. Online courses barely existed in the mid-’80s, except at pioneering universities, but virtually none offered online degrees. The World Wide Web was not invented until 1989, according to the World Wide Web Foundation.
In an interview Wednesday night, Treftz reiterated her story, saying she did take online courses but that they were a scam. When asked how she took online classes before the invention of the World Wide Web, she ignored the question and asked how Bernie Madoff duped people. She would not say where the diploma came from or how it was created.
“I’ve been using it for 20 years,” she said, adding it came in the mail.
Treftz would not provide further details about how she obtained the diploma that is included in her personnel file.
“I didn’t need the diploma to get the job,” she said, adding, “I did the work. Obviously I paid money to Tokyo or Taiwan or Africa or who knows where, and they had a credit card, my credit card, you know. I was young and dumb.”
The county issued a formal letter to Treftz on Tuesday, accepting her resignation, but she apparently had no desire to quit. She sent her supervisor an email at 5:32 a.m. that morning claiming she had been duped.
“I do have the experience to do this job and have worked hard to show you that I care about the shelter and employees and hope this has no effect on my position,” she wrote.
Treftz wrote she had taken three years of online classes.
“I did not purposely lie on my application. I truly believed I had done the work and earned my degree. I really feel so stupid now,” she said.
County Manager Ed Smith said Treftz was a probationary employee — she was hired this summer — and confirmed she would have been fired had she not resigned.
Smith said background checks vary, and had a college degree been required for the position, it would have been checked out.
The county also does a criminal background check but did not find Treftz’s DUI from 1992 received in Pinellas County. She also pleaded no contest to retail theft in 1997 in the same county. Treftz drove a county vehicle while on the job.
The county has no written guidelines for hiring people with criminal records, but does for those who drive county vehicles. The minimum standards include “no major convictions” from a list that includes DUI. The county, however, may provide leniency based on how long ago it occurred, said Valerie Sale, county spokeswoman.
Until this controversy came to light, county officials were satisfied with Treftz’ job performance.
“Carol was doing, we think, a good job out there. … I don’t think this is at all a reflection on her ability to run the animal” shelter, Smith said.
But it was welcome news to volunteers who were critical of her, and some expressed their satisfaction with the outcome on social media. Animal advocate Sue Russell, who has been banned from the shelter, is one of the volunteers’ leaders and helped review Treftz’s personnel file, which revealed the discrepancies on her degree.
Russell said Smith made the right decision to get rid of Treftz and it was good for the shelter that she was gone.
There’s been plenty of tension between the two groups, after the county essentially shut down the volunteer program more than two years ago. A meeting is scheduled today between county officials and a volunteer representative.
County officials have been saying volunteer program will return, and Smith said Wednesday it should be up and running by spring.
In the past year, shelter officials were accused of failing to keep proper track of kill rates and falsifying documents related to a barbiturate used for euthanasia.
That prompted the county to bring in an outside shelter group and make sweeping changes. Smith said he didn’t believe additional changes were needed beyond those already enacted.
“Apparently we didn’t get the right person to incorporate the changes we’re making,” he said.
County Commission Chairman Guy Tunnell said he was “frustrated” and “disappointed” by the news of Treftz’s diploma, even more so because the board increased Animal Control’s budget by more than $300,000 this year.
Tunnell supported terminating Treftz, but said as a board member he isn’t involved in the hiring and firing.
“I would hope we would probably do better next time,” he said.