Joel EngelhardtWorkers’ questions went unanswered as failure to submit key documents left pension in limbo.
A brazen error in handling employee pension money has drawn harsh criticism of the Lake Park town manager, who assures residents and the town’s 60-plus employees that the mistake has been rectified.
Hanging over the uncertainty of a town torn by disputes involving a lucrative waterfront development deal is an unfinished investigation started in November by the Palm Beach County inspector general about the pension debacle.
The outcome could become a wedge to oust Rich Reade, the town manager for 20 months, as he has clashed with Forest Development, the town’s largest developer, which sued the town over the waterfront deal.
But Reade has maintained support from a majority of the Town Commission as he parries allegations that he lied about what he knew about the pension problem. He has reported to the commission that as soon as he found out in November, he fixed the problem.
At issue is the town’s migration from a pension overseen by Corebridge Financial to enrollment in the Florida Retirement System, which should have happened in July 2025.
Emails gathered by a whistleblower and a former town administrator, reviewed by Stet News, show that for months town employees didn’t have access to their pension accounts and no one could tell them why.
The emails reveal that the issue came down to a lack of communication at a critical point when two administrators failed to provide the state pension system with key documents and never met to speak about it and address the problem.
For Reade, who told commissioners last year that a former employee charged with overseeing the transition made the mistake, it’s no longer about finding fault.
“If you want to point out who made the mistake? It’s me,” he said. “Even though I didn’t know about it, I take responsibility that this happened under my watch.”
Employee: ‘Do you have any idea what’s going on?’
Employees had been assured that 3% of their pay and a 14% town match were flowing into the FRS pension plan as of July 1, 2025. Those payments amounted to about $60,000 a month.
But soon after the migration date, town workers began to complain that they couldn’t find their money.
Employees peppered administrators, including Finance Director Barbara Gould, with emails explaining that they could not find information online. None of the emails went to Reade.
“Where (do) I go to elect my FRS plan?” one worker asked Gould in August.
Gould replied: “You need to wait until FRS sends you the welcome packet to make your election.”
In September, another employee wrote that she and her colleagues still hadn’t received a welcome packet.
“I was told by the gentleman I talked to that I was not in the system and therefore would not have received a Welcome Kit,” the employee wrote on Sept. 17. “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
Gould replied: “I have an issue getting the funds processed that I am working on. As soon as I can resolve, I will update you.”
In October, an employee reached out to the human resources director, who passed the inquiry to Gould.
“I just spoke with a rep from FRS pension to inquire about my plan with them,” the email said. “The representative advised they do not see the town of Lake Park as an active participant in the plan at all. He also confirmed this with a senior team member who has a higher access to view participants in the plan.”
Employees in the town of about 9,000 north of Riviera Beach said they received no satisfactory answer.
And Reade, who was enrolled in the pension plan along with town commissioners and all town employees, said no one told him about the problem.
The whistleblower
Laura Mochi watched the pension drama play out from her post near the entrance to Town Hall, where she greeted visitors, answered phones and took payments as cashier in the Finance Department.
She became increasingly concerned as workers told her of their worries and she saw no effort from her usually reliable boss, Gould, to make the issue a priority, she wrote in a Dec. 4 email to town commissioners.
In a November email to town commissioners, she urged them to investigate.
“Tell me, what would any of you think if this is how your employer treated you? Do you know I had to sit there, listen to all these concerns and complaints. … This wall-of-silence treatment regarding a basic fundamental question of where their very own money was, makes me sick just thinking about how ill-regarded the employees are in the eyes of this town manager. No matter how many times he professes to ‘care so much,’ his actions affirm just the opposite.”
Mochi came to the town in 2024 after decades as a corporate executive assistant. She gave two weeks’ notice in late October after clashing with Reade and Gould over an email she sent to Reade suggesting changes in the way the town handled incoming phone calls.
Before Mochi’s last day, she called FRS, reaching Director Kathy Gould (no relation to Barbara), to tell her the town had been collecting pension payments without ever joining FRS.
Kathy Gould appeared ready to brush off the complaint, Mochi said, until Mochi forwarded her an email in which Reade announced the town’s enrollment in FRS.
The next morning, Kathy Gould sent Mochi an email saying she had referred the matter to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Since the town was not enrolled in FRS, she explained that her office could not take action. She advised Mochi to take the matter up with the Palm Beach County Inspector General’s Office or a private attorney.
That same day, Oct. 29, Mochi took a phone message for Reade from an FDLE investigator. The investigator called back the next day and when Reade didn’t pick up, Mochi gave the investigator Barbara Gould’s contact information.
Reade told Stet News he didn’t return the investigator’s calls because the message from his assistant was unclear and he thought the calls were about something else.
FDLE investigator is calling
The following Monday, Nov. 3, the FDLE investigator called Gould. Mochi transferred the call. She said she went by Gould’s office to make sure they connected. After the call, Mochi said she called the FDLE agent and confirmed that the two had spoken.
Gould said through a town spokeswoman that she doesn’t recall talking to the investigator.
Mochi said that conversation with the investigator spurred her to go that same day, her second-to-last day on the job, to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office substation in Lake Park and report the matter.
She spoke to a corporal who called FRS and, unable to confirm her account, found no evidence of a financial crime, recommended she check with the town and didn’t take a report. A sergeant took her complaint “for information purposes only.”
Reade said he learned of her PBSO visit the next night and reached out to Gould and the town attorney.
On Nov. 5, Mochi filed a complaint at the inspector general’s office, backing it up with emails.
That same morning, Reade said he spoke with Gould and learned that the town had not been enrolled in the state pension system. He said he reached out to FRS to find out how to fix the problem.
Completing the remaining paperwork took about 10 to 15 minutes, Reade said.
By Nov. 17, the town had enrolled starting Dec. 1 and retroactive to July 1, he said. While he said the employees lost nothing because of the mistake, employees say they lost investment gains and those amounts remain unpaid.
That same day, Reade spoke to an FDLE agent and said the successful sign-up resolved the FDLE investigation.
In August, a town labor union, the Federation of Public Employees, filed a grievance about the lost investment income. “The town manager admitted they messed it up. Now it needs to be finalized,” the union wrote.
In an Aug. 18 meeting with Reade, the town promised to provide an actuarial report for every employee, indicating the amount of money their pension investment would have earned between July and December. The town is promising to match that amount, its first cost incurred.
Until the actuarial report is complete, which could be another two months, the grievance has been put on hold, said Guy Masters, the union national vice president who represents Lake Park employees.
Enter assistant town manager
Reade handed a three-day suspension over the pension mistake in December to his finance director, Barbara Gould, saying she “concealed defective work” and failed to “complete significant work responsibilities that are expected of this position.”
But he also pointed out in an interview with Stet News that he had appointed the task of overseeing the transition to his assistant town manager at the time, Bambi McKibbon-Turner.
McKibbon-Turner, a 24-year employee who had served as interim town manager and applied for the town manager job awarded to Reade, resigned on July 31 at age 78. She later filed an age discrimination complaint against Reade.
Before her resignation, she sent employees an email indicating the pension migration had been accomplished as expected on July 1. She said in an interview with Stet that she based that email on the town’s acceptance into workshops offered by Ernst & Young, which advised employees on their pension decision. Those workshops were available only if the town had joined FRS, McKibbon-Turner said.
Back on April 24, 2025, both women had received an email from Hobart Lawrance, an FRS bureau chief, telling them that they needed to send employee information and four required documents, including contribution requirements and a general information worksheet.
Late in the afternoon on a Friday in June, Lawrance sent them a duplicate of the email saying FRS still needed those documents “to complete the join.”
At 12:51 pm the following Monday, June 16, just two weeks before the enrollment would go live, McKibbon-Turner forwarded the email to Gould, saying, “This is just a note to follow up on the items listed in the email below. Please let me know how I can be of assistance :).”
She got no answer.
And they never spoke.
‘I will reach out to (FRS) support to resolve’
Ten days later, McKibbon-Turner and Gould emailed one another about the information to share with employees about their new pensions.
When McKibbon-Turner asked, “Do you believe it is safe to provide employees with the information?” Gould replied: “Yes, between today and tomorrow I plan to complete the set up for FRS and shut down of Corebridge.”
Her meaning, Reade told Stet News, was not that the town had enrolled in FRS but rather that Gould would be making changes to the town’s financial software to assure employee deductions would be made to FRS.
Gould thought nothing amiss, town officials said, because she believed McKibbon-Turner turned in the paperwork.
If Gould knew that the final paperwork had not been submitted, McKibbon-Turner said, she believed Gould would not have let her send the email to employees.
In a later defense to town commissioners, McKibbon-Turner explained why she relied on Gould to file the four documents in late June.
The finance director “has always served as the administrator of the town’s retirement plans,” she wrote, and had worked with the previous pension provider, Corebridge, on the migration.
“I had every confidence in Barbara,” McKibbon-Turner said in an interview. “She had never dropped the ball before.”
The issue arose again toward the end of July, as McKibbon-Turner worked her final days before her July 31 retirement.
In a July 28 email to McKibbon-Turner, Gould asked the assistant town manager to approve the town’s payroll.
“Please note FRS is not included at this time,” Gould wrote. She explained that she got an error notice on her first monthly submittal to the state pension fund. “I will reach out to (FRS) support to resolve.”
Looking back, McKibbon-Turner viewed that email as a clear indication that something was amiss.
Gould told Reade that she thought the error message indicated that the town’s payments had not gone through, not that the town had not been enrolled in FRS.
Even months later, McKibbon-Turner continued to ponder the employees inability to get answers.
“I find this pattern to be very interesting and disturbing,” she wrote to Stet. “This continues to beg the questions — why did this all happen? What was Barbara hiding and what is truly at the bottom of all of this?”
‘I’m sorry to bring this news to people’
Employees started raising concerns in early August.
Reade said he took action on Nov. 5, submitting the unfulfilled paperwork to get the enrollment in place by Dec. 1.
He wrote an email to town commissioners Nov. 14, saying the paperwork had been completed and the town’s entry into FRS would begin on Dec. 1, retroactive to July 1.
He said there would be no penalty, “an absolute blessing and, thus, the town will have no additional out-of-pocket expenses related to the buy-back option.” However, he conceded later, the town would have to cover the cost of lost investment earnings.
A few days later, McKibbon-Turner sent commissioners her defense, and Mochi wrote to the commission on Nov. 18, disclosing that she had complained to the inspector general.
She urged commissioners to dig deeper into “the abhorrent lack of transparency and flat-out refusal to communicate anything (not ONE word) in writing FOR A PERIOD OF OVER 4 MONTHS, despite the numerous employees’ emails inquiring about their funds.”
The matter went public the next night, at the Nov. 19 Town Commission meeting.
During a discussion of how to proceed with Reade’s annual evaluation, which still has not been completed, Commissioner Michael O’Rourke announced that he had spoken to then-Inspector General John Carey, who confirmed the investigation and said an investigator would be visiting next week.
“I’m sorry to bring this news to people,” O’Rourke said. “This is not a good thing when the town gets put into this place, but this is now something we’re going to have to deal with.”
‘There was no misappropriation of money’
Given a chance to respond later in the meeting, Reade said the news of an IG investigation surprised him.
Without naming Mochi, he said “a young lady leaving our employment had a concern about some pension issues.” When he learned of it on Nov. 5, he notified the town attorney, HR manager and finance director.
“I had no idea there were any issues,” Reade said.
Without naming her, Reade blamed McKibbon-Turner.
“I was notified that the one person that was responsible and directed by me to take on the responsibility of filling out the paperwork and completing the entire process did not complete the paperwork,” he told commissioners. “And, it’s unfortunate.”
He took immediate actions and resolved the issue without a financial penalty, he told commissioners.
“I spoke to someone from the state, and they seemed to be very satisfied,” he said. “Did we miss the ball in some areas? Absolutely. Absolutely. And we’ve addressed that.
“There was no fooling around with money. There was no misappropriation of money.
… This was a sheer mistake that happened. I’m sure it was a mistake by the person who is no longer here. I can just tell you that we’ve resolved it.”
Reade continues to have the support of a majority of town commissioners, even as he ratchets up pressure on Forest Development over development of the marina. After a judge declared that the town violated the Sunshine Law when it selected Forest for the job, the town is moving to dismiss Forest’s lawsuit.
But Reade also has been looking for a new job in north Florida.
At the town’s June 17 meeting, Commissioner Judith Thomas questioned Reade about applying for the county manager job in Jefferson County, which is east of Tallahassee and would put Reade closer to family. Jefferson commissioners interviewed Reade for the job in June but didn’t select him.
Reade’s name has since surfaced as a finalist for the top job in Flagler County.
Awaiting the inspector general
Reade said he has met with the inspector general’s investigator and provided 50,000 pages of documents.
The investigation is not done yet, Inspector General Kalinthia Dillard, who replaced Carey in June, told Stet News.
While she hopes it is wrapped up soon, she said she is obligated to give the town 10 days to respond to a draft of the report and to give the whistleblower, Mochi, 20 days to review it.
Despite the pressure, Reade is digging in.
“The constant attacks because of the need to be professional in how we do our work has been overwhelming,” he told Stet News. “I’m trying to do the right thing, moving the community forward in a way that my five bosses want to move.”
