Saratoga News

Former finance director gets six-month sentence

Shriver will keep collecting pension she earned during her tenure as a municipal employee

By Clarence Cromwell

The former Saratoga finance director who pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $6,000 in public funds can still collect--from her jail cell--a pension that the city helped pay.

Former Saratoga finance director Patricia Shriver, 58, must spend six months in jail and the next three years on probation for embezzling public funds, according to a sentence handed down Jan. 19 by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge John T. Ball.

Shriver will continue to receive a monthly benefit of $2,343.35, before taxes and any other deductions, from a retirement account she built up during her nine-year stint as a municipal employee.

The city of Saratoga each month contributed the equivalent of approximately 6 percent to 9 percent of Shriver's gross income to her Public Employees Retirement System account. When she resigned and officially retired one year ago today, her gross annual salary was $73,465.

The conviction will not affect the account. Under California's Public Employees' Retirement Law, a government employee's retirement benefits cannot be taken away after five years of contributing to PERS.

Public Employees Retirement System public affairs officer Nancy Quinlan said she couldn't reveal the date Shriver opened the PERS account or any other detailed information, because of confidentiality laws.

Shriver paid back all the money she took, plus the $4,500 cost of the investigation that snared her, City Manager Harry Peacock said. The city withheld her last paycheck to help cover the costs.

Shriver defrauded the city of a total of $6,179 by typing three city payroll checks to herself and depositing them in her own bank accounts, court records show. She pleaded guilty on Nov. 27.

Shriver, who has been free on bail, must report to the county jail in San Jose on March 4 to begin her sentence. The judge could have given her three years for the offense.

Once released from jail, Shriver will be prohibited by state law from working in any job that involves entrustment of public funds. Before taking her Saratoga post, Shriver worked for the city of Milpitas, where she was an accountant for two years.