State Auditor Rob Sand says auditors have identified “major concerns” about how a city clerk in a small southwest Iowa town handled city funds.
“Cities have multiple accounts,” Sand told Radio Iowa, “and if funds are not properly attributed to the accounts where they are due, then you can end up in a messy situation like this.”
In August of 2022, Doris Loy was fired from her job as city clerk of Lorimor, a town in Union County with fewer than 400 residents. The state auditor’s report shows there was a quarter of a million dollar deficit in the town’s General Fund budget — and Sand said auditors found Lorimor residents were being overcharged for natural gas service and had paid 44%t more in property taxes than was called for in city records. The report also cites Loy’s request for backpay after she was fired.
“Someone asking for payouts when they are terminated and the basis that they are asking for that on is a handbook where electronic evidence shows it was edited just shortly before that person was terminated,” Sand said.
The report identified over two dozen concerns about Loy’s bookkeeping, like checks getting signed before she had authority to do so. “This is a red flag,” Sand said. “That just shouldn’t ever happen.”
Auditors could not find two computers the city acquired about eight months before the clerk was fired. Loy has recently been city clerk in the small communities of Woodburn and Patterson as well. In 2013, Loy was fired after working for about a decade as city clerk in Grand River. A special investigation by the State Auditor’s office in 2013 found Loy was responsible for mishandling $27,000 worth of city funds.