Town Manager Rich Reade completed the missing paperwork for the Florida Retirement System on November 5, 2025, retroactively enrolling Lake Park employees effective July 1. The error meant that for nearly five months, roughly $60,000 in monthly pension contributions—comprising 3% of employee pay and a 14% town match—sat uninvested.
The breakdown began on April 24, 2025, when FRS bureau chief Hobart Lawrance emailed Finance Director Barbara Gould and former Assistant Town Manager Bambi McKibbon-Turner with four required documents. McKibbon-Turner forwarded the email to Gould in June, asking how she could help. They never spoke. The paperwork was never submitted.
Employees noticed the problem when they couldn’t access their FRS accounts online. In October, a senior FRS team member confirmed to WLRN that Lake Park was not an active participant in the plan. cashier Laura Mochi, who had watched her colleagues’ concerns go unanswered, reported the issue to FRS Director Kathy Gould in late October. Gould referred the matter to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and an FDLE investigator contacted Barbara Gould on November 3.
Reade admitted he only learned of the gap on November 5, after which he fixed the enrollment in 10 to 15 minutes. He suspended Gould for three days in December for “concealing defective work” and placed responsibility on McKibbon-Turner, who resigned on July 31. Reade told commissioners no financial penalty applied, but the town must cover employees' lost investment earnings, a figure still being calculated through an actuarial report.
The Palm Beach County Inspector General’s investigation into the episode remains open, with Mochi’s November 5 complaint backed by emails documenting the missed communications. The town is currently finalizing the actuarial report tied to a union grievance to determine the exact cost of the five-month delay.