Lee RoodDes Moines Register
A limited examination by Iowa's state auditor into the financials in three small Iowa towns where a city clerk accused of financial mismanagement once worked found problems with their bookkeeping and violations of state law.
The review released Wednesday by the auditor’s office of financials from 2021 and 2022 in the towns of Lorimor, Woodburn and Patterson came after residents raised concerns about Doris Loy, a city clerk for years in central and southern Iowa who had been fired from several jobs but never charged criminally.
State Auditor Rob Sand said the county attorney in Union County should examine the report released by his office on the city of Lorimor, where auditors found the former clerk was overpaid overtime, vacation and sick leave.
Sand said Loy tried to present an employee handbook with changes made to it, claiming the changes justified how she'd been paid, but those changes had not been approved by the city council.
"It looks like she was just making it up on the spot," he said. "That is something I think the county attorney should be reviewing."
Loy, 59, of Murray, could not be reached Wednesday for comment. Nor could Shane O'Toole, the Union County Attorney.
The findings, Sand said, are another cautionary tale for officials in Iowa’s small towns, where he said city officials should be asking to see all local account statements every month to prevent theft or fraud.
“So much of this really comes down to temptation,” he said. “Demanding the bank accounts on a regular basis lessens temptation.”
Earlier this week, federal officials announced a prosecution of a city clerk who stole more than $107,000.
Keri Kopriva, 44, a former clerk for the city of Clutier, was sentenced to nearly two years in federal prison for wire fraud. From 2016 to 2018, she stole money from the city, including writing checks to herself and to family members, using city credit cards for personal expenses, and pocketing money meant for utility payments from city residents.
The probes released this week by Sand's office found city councils and mayors in the towns didn't receive monthly treasurer’s reports; that bank and investment accounts weren’t being reconciled monthly; that some spending wasn't approved first by the council; the public wasn't receiving proper notice of budget meetings; spending sometimes exceeded what was budgeted; and general funds were operating at a deficit at times — problems Sand said are common enough in small towns and cities.
But it also found Loy failed to issue monthly reports as she should have at times, that she kept at home blank checks, certificates of deposit, debit cards, and computers, and that she wrote checks without the approval of the local city council.
The audit reports for each town gave recommendations to make improvements.
In August 2022, Loy was the subject of a Watchdog column after a reader flagged her controversial past. At the time, she’d been fired twice in eight years in Lorimor, a town of fewer than 400.
She also worked at the same time about 40 miles away in Woodburn, a hamlet of just 146 people in Clarke County and in Patterson, in Madison County, with fewer than 180 residents.
The first time Loy was fired in Lorimor in 2015 came after residents organized a petition calling for the state to investigate her for potential fraud of taxpayer dollars. Mayor George Lange padlocked City Hall for two weeksto prevent Loy from entering while she was placed on unpaid leave until her firing.
Lange later resigned when the City Council briefly reinstatedher, according to theKCCI report. Loydenied any wrongdoing at the time.
Loy also had been fired in 2013 as city clerk in Grand River, where aspecial investigationby the state auditor found more than $27,000 in misspent funds in the southcentral Iowa town. A 2013 auditor's investigation, which covered Loy's employment from 2002 to 2012, when she was fired, uncovered more than $10,700 in improper disbursem*nts,including $1,149 to herself.
After the Grand River City Council fired Loy, she refused to return city records and equipment that were at her house, according to the state audit detailed in the Des Moines Registerat the time.
And she was fired as deputy city clerk by then-Mayor Tom Shenk in the city of Granger in 2008. City Administrator Kirk Bjorland said in 2022 he did not know why Loy was fired.
