NORWAY — A Norway man accused of defrauding the town of nearly $4,000 in General Assistance benefits was indicted on a felony theft charge by an Oxford County grand jury last month.

Blaine T. Whitney, 44, of Main Street, is expected to appear in court for an arraignment June 20. He is charged with one count of theft by deception.

If convicted, he faces a maximum punishment of five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Police accused Whitney of fraudulently collecting General Assistance payments from the town from June 2012 until the middle of April 2014.

General Assistance is a municipally-administrated financial aid program meant to serve as a last resort for people in need of fuel or housing assistance.

Norway police Detective Gary Hill said Thursday that the incident was brought to the attention of police by General Assistance Administrator Shannon Moxcey in March.

Whitney was reported to have been receiving assistance from the town since 2009, but police were only able to find evidence showing he has been collecting assistance since June 2012, Hill said. Whitney is accused of bilking the taxpayer-supported program out of nearly $4,000 during that time.

Investigators say Whitney was sharing an apartment with another person at the time he was collecting assistance, but intentionally failed to report that person or the person’s income on his monthly General Assistance application. 

By omitting that he was sharing his residence with another person, Whitney was able to claim the maximum $490 monthly housing allowance, Moxcey said Tuesday.

In January, Whitney pleaded guilty to stealing and using another man’s state Electronic Benefit Transfer card. He was sentenced to 72 hours in jail and ordered to pay $130 in fines. That case was investigated by Norway police and the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Hill said.

It is not uncommon for police to discover people using EBT cards and other forms of public assistance fraudulently, Hill said, but it is not a rampant problem. 

“We don’t see it daily or even weekly,” Hill said, “but we do see it.”

Since 2012, Norway and Paris have dramatically reduced spending on General Assistance, largely due to sharing Moxcey as the program administrator for both towns. 

In the fiscal year before she was hired, Norway disbursed $105,166 in General Assistance benefits, according to figures included in this year’s town budget.

In 2013, the amount of benefits was slashed to about $30,000. So far in 2014, the town has released about $11,300 and is budgeting $34,000 for the 2014-15 fiscal year. 

Paris, which usually disburses less General Assistance funding than Norway, has also seen its entire GA budget, including administrative costs, dwindle, from $56,897 in 2013 to $37,400 proposed for next year.