NORWAY – With an audit of finances almost complete, Norway Town Manager David Holt said Thursday night that officials believe more than $100,000 has been taken from the town since the early 1990s.
The announcement was made at a special town meeting where residents voted to use $40,000 from surplus to pay auditors $25,000 for their investigation, report and court testimony, and town attorneys $15,000 for their work on the case.
Forensic auditors Glen Kierstead and Jay French were hired early this year to investigate town accounts after officials learned that thousands of dollars in Community Development Block Grants were missing.
Longtime Community Development Director Deborah Wyman, 51, was charged in March with stealing at least $10,000 in federal grants from January 2003 to January 2006. She pleaded not guilty to Class B felony theft in April and is free on $2,500 cash bail. A trial date has not been set.
Wyman held the part-time director’s post from 1986 until early April, overseeing more than $5 million from the federal CBDG program. She was paid $15 an hour for the 20-hour-a-week job.
A preliminary investigation by police identified at least 67 transactions of town funds deposited into Wyman’s personal account at KeyBank on Main Street, a few blocks from her office in the municipal building on Danforth Street, according to records. The deposits were made via ATMs, police said.
In a March 17 affidavit, Maine State Police Detective John R. Hainey stated the amount of town money believed taken by Wyman was in excess of $55,000.
A few residents Thursday night wanted to know why town officials were not aware of the missing money sooner.
Dennise Whitley of Norway asked how the financial discrepancies could have gone undetected for so long, despite annual town audits.
Holt admitted there is no satisfactory answer, but said auditors generally only take samples of transactions and, with no suspicions, it is hard to detect behavior that someone is deftly trying to cover up.
Selectman Les Flanders pointed out that the missing money was largely meant to be meted out to local individuals and businesses in the form of community development grants and such.
“No one stepped forward to say they hadn’t been paid,” Flanders said. “These funds were supposed to be depleted.”
He added, “There are very few auditors in the state who would have picked this up.”
The town has hired a new auditing firm.
Besides the criminal charge against its former employee, the town has filed a civil suit against Wyman to recoup the missing money as well as all its expenses related to the case.
Insurance money is also available to help cover the town’s loss.
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