City Says Safeguards In Place To Catch Misuse Of Funds

By Jeff Gulley

For the second time this year, accusations of misuse of public funds have been levied against the city of Osawatomie.

Last week recreation director Ron Maring was arrested for allegedly taking cash advances on a recreation commission credit card. That came after the arrest in July of former police officer Jason Hudson for similar charges of misusing a city credit card.

Although Maring is officially an employee of the recreation commission, the funds in question were city tax dollars.

New city manager Don Cawby started last Monday and was thrown right into a situation where the public trust was damaged.

“I think catching these two instances will go a long way to discourage this type of behavior,” Cawby said. “What we have to do is eliminate the opportunity for that to happen.”

Cawby said it was his understanding that the first situation with Hudson made it possible to catch it the second time.

Cawby also said that he believes incidents like this increase in times of financial downturn.

Assistant police chief Bob Butters said both investigations were handled by outside agencies to avoid a conflict of interest but he said it was his opinion that it was a positive thing that both situations were discovered and investigated.

Mayor Phil Dudley said the council put financial policies in place two years ago to ensure the audit of credit card use and he said he is confident that the policy is working.

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Posted by admin on Aug 25 2011. Filed under News and Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry