12/17/2023 0 Comments Rita crundwellMarianne Shank, its executive director, said that giving a financial officer multiple responsibilities isn't unusual for small towns but that other checks and balances need to be in place such as making sure duplicate bank statements go to another co-worker. With the publicity the Dixon story has drawn, the Illinois Government Finance Officers Association is reminding its members around the state to check out their internal controls as well. "The person that writes the checks isn't the person who deposits the checks." "That's Accounting 101, segregation of duties," Pope said. As both treasurer and comptroller, Crundwell held almost complete control over the city's bank accounts. Hahn confirmed that Dixon was up to date in turning in its audits and that those documents "indicated everything was in line."Īlthough Pope can understand how an audit could have missed some of the city's large transactions, she said the auditor likely should have raised a red flag about its weak internal controls. But Brad Hahn, communications director for Topinka, said the state is only a repository for the records and does not analyze them. Card, who was responsible for crunching the numbers, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.Īfter an audit is performed, it is sent to the office of state Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka. She said the firm was "fully cooperating" with the investigation. Jennifer Dirks, communications director of CliftonLarsonAllen, stressed that her firm's duty was only to collect the documents. However, Pope said she was shocked that the small-town government didn't shut down over the size of the losses. In Dixon, the key account at the center of the alleged thefts may not have even been part of the audit sample, she said. "This should have been caught immediately."īut Kelly Pope, assistant professor of accountancy at DePaul University and a forensic accountant, said auditors are often unfairly blamed for missing fraud when they look at only a portion of the finances. "It sounds like somebody was asleep at the wheel," he said. …You have to have other evidence," he said.Ĭzurylo, who now does forensic accounting in the private sector, said the huge transfers should have been "the red flag of all time." But auditors are supposed to look more in depth at suspicious items. Sinason said the auditor might have spotted the large transactions but accepted Crundwell's explanations for them. c/o Rita Crundwell." It was from this account that the FBI alleges Crundwell spent more than $30 million in city money over the last six years on her horse business, a luxury motor home and horse trailer, jewelry, and credit card payments. Authorities said she then moved the money into an account that bore both the city's name and "R.S.C.D.A. A close look at even one of the large alleged transfers by Crundwell or the checks she had made out to "Treasurer" should have set off alarms, he said.Ĭrundwell is accused of funneling money from a handful of accounts into the city's Capital Development Fund account, which finances major capital improvements. Mayor James Burke, who has led the city of nearly 16,000 since 1999, said he has scrutinized every year's audit but admitted that he and other city leaders may "have a misconception of what these audits do." He has suggested that the city's other financial problems may have masked the losses caused by the alleged thefts.Ĭalling Crundwell "very crafty," the mayor said, "It seemed like she knew just how to leave enough money in there to keep paying the bills and limping along."ĭavid Sinason, a Northern Illinois University accountancy professor and certified fraud examiner, said that a routine audit is not geared toward catching fraud but that there were enough unusual transactions and such lax financial controls that the auditors or elected officials should have noticed something was amiss. Card, of Sterling, played the far more important role of analyzing them. CliftonLarsonAllen, located in Dixon, just gathered the financial documents, while Samuel S. Two independent firms were involved in Dixon's annual audit.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |