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Crab Orchard still tracking missing city funds

May 14, 2011|By TODD¿KLEFFMAN | tkleffman@amnews.com

CRAB¿ORCHARD - City officials plan to meet with their auditor this week, hoping to get closer to figuring out how money disappeared from the city’s coffers and who should be held responsible.

Mayor Billy Shelton said Friday that a Kentucky State Police investigation into between $3,000 and $4,000 in missing city funds remains on hold until auditor Craig Butler finishes going over the city’s financial records. Butler, a Danville CPA, is looking back to 2005, the last year an audit was completed. Butler is close to completing the task and will update officials on his findings this week, Shelton said.

Shelton dismissed former City Clerk Cheri Kuhn last month, replacing her with Nancy Baker.

“I just had a lot of mistrust, and there were a few things I didn’t like,” Shelton said of Kuhn’s termination.

Kuhn was the second city employee Shelton has dismissed since taking office in January and noticing irregularities in the city’s finances. An unidentified maintenance worker was fired in February after admitting to investigators he took some money from the cash drawer and safe at city hall. That employee has not been charged criminally and has promised to make restitution after the investigation is completed.

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Shelton said it is believed that at least one other person is involved with the missing money.

“We do know that it’s between $3,000 and $4,000 that was mishandled or is missing,” he said. “That’s not a little amount for a city like us that is under stress.”

The person in the city clerk position is required to be bonded by law, and the city is insured against theft, the mayor said. The audits need to be finished and the information turned over to KSP before the matter is finally sorted out.

“I can’t say what else is going on until the state police gets done,” Shelton said.

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