TPD Chief Avery Moore racked up $1K+ bill on work phone during international vacation
Tacoma Police Chief Avery Moore had a meeting with his superior on Sept. 23, two days before he was informed he’d be placed on paid administrative leave. The matter at hand, records show, boiled down to a cell phone.
City Manager Elizabeth Pauli aimed to discuss the top cop’s city-issued phone, according to documents obtained by The News Tribune — namely, personal charges racked up while Moore was on vacation.
Pauli recently stated that Moore’s leave was tied to his personal use of a city asset, the newspaper reported last month. The issue was investigated, and Moore returned to work the next week.
The News Tribune requested records related to the chief’s administrative leave. Some still haven’t arrived, but the ones received so far paint a picture of what led to the controversy.
What prompted the Sept. 23 meeting?
The president of the Local 6 police union, Sgt. Henry Betts, called Pauli about some concerning charges to the chief’s city-issued cell phone during a vacation, per a summary of the Sept. 23 meeting written by a deputy city manager. The union head pointed to a large bill — more than $1,000 — that Moore had apparently incurred.
Pauli told Betts that she would need to talk it over with the chief, and the two met on Monday, Sept. 23, the notes say.
“The Chief responded that he had no knowledge of any personal charges to his city issued cellphone plan,” according to the meeting summary. “He stated that he had taken his department issued cellphone out of the country and had used it for GPS navigation due to his unfamiliarity with the area.”
Moore explained that his personal cell phone was neither accessible nor working, documents state. He said he “had no knowledge” of the work-phone charges and “expressed genuine confusion” about how he could have known about them.
“He stated that had he known, he would have taken care of the charges,” the summary says.
From there Pauli directed Moore to pay up, according to the notes. She “also addressed with the Chief the continual need to address perceptional issues at the Tacoma Police Department.”
Moore was then accompanied to the finance office to deal with the issue, per the records.
The city would not provide additional comment when contacted by The News Tribune on Thursday. Efforts to reach Moore and the Police Department by phone and email were unsuccessful.
Betts acknowledged to The News Tribune on Thursday that he called the city manager with concerns, but he declined to elaborate. It is unclear how he came to know about Moore’s cell-phone charges.
The News Tribune requested comment from Pauli via email on Friday, to which a spokesperson replied: “The City Manager does not have anything further to say on this topic, since the statement she had shared on October 2, 2024.”
How much were the charges?
Phone records for Moore show $1,082.54 in international charges on an invoice due Aug. 27. That amount included $55.49 in international minutes and $1,020.90 for international data in Sweden, plus additional smaller costs.
While the chief told Pauli during their Sept. 23 meeting that he had no knowledge of the charges, another document obtained by The News Tribune indicates that he did.
In a Sept. 26 email to Pauli, a woman who now works as a public safety labor negotiator with the city noted that she’d learned about the work-phone problem in July. The woman, who worked as Moore’s chief of staff at the time, said she tried getting in touch with the chief to schedule a meeting but only got his voicemail.
When she eventually talked with the chief via his personal phone, he was “upset” and said his work phone was out of commission, she wrote.
“On Monday, July 22, 2024, [Moore] said he learned Verizon had turned off the phone,” her statement said. “He further stated that two days into his trip (he was out of the country on vacation), he began receiving text messages indicating payments due of $250, $500, etc., and then the phone was shut off.
“I asked what he was doing that ran up the bill so quickly, and he said he was using it for GPS to get around, to which I replied, ‘I think you will need to pay that bill,’” she continued.
Afterward she followed up with someone in the IT department who helped to get the phone restored, she wrote. IT explained that Verizon automatically pauses service following a certain number of “unbillable charges.” She then gave Moore an update on what she’d found out.
Local 6 has also sought records pertaining to Moore, documents show. On Sept. 25, a lawyer writing on behalf of the union requested the chief’s recent city-issued phone bills and other related information.
This story was originally published November 1, 2024 at 2:48 PM.
