The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

Carthage, Jasper County

Discussion

July 2, 2009

Alba hopes to recoup lost funds

By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

ALBA, Mo. — The mayor of Alba thinks the town should be able to recoup some portion of almost $80,000 that a former city clerk is accused of embezzling.

Mayor Troy Browning said in a telephone interview Thursday that the town is bonded and should be able to get back some percentage of the theft loss. But the mayor acknowledged that he does not know how much.

“It’s ridiculous,” Browning said of the alleged embezzlement that he first detected in May and resulted in a charge being filed last week against Heather J. Baugh, 32, of rural Reeds. “It’s been making me sick.”

Baugh was fired in May in a closed session of the Alba Board of Aldermen at which Baugh admitted the theft to board members, the mayor said. She had been hired by the board in April 2007 to serve as the Jasper County town’s city clerk.

Browning said he became concerned about city financial records in early May after noticing some discrepancies between monthly ending balances on city accounts and beginning balances of the following months.

He said he went to Southwest Missouri Bank, which carries the city’s accounts, on May 5 and pulled four months’ worth of records. What he found in those records he took to the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department, and an investigation was launched.

The Jasper County prosecutor’s office filed a charge of Class B felony theft against Baugh on June 23, and she turned herself in Monday on the warrant. She is free on $3,500 bond pending an arraignment scheduled for July 15.

The Sheriff’s Department has said Baugh allegedly wrote extra paychecks to herself and misused three city credit cards for personal expenses. The total of the theft was listed at $78,753.53 on a probable-cause affidavit.

The mayor said Thursday that Alba city checks are supposed to require a co-signer. He said that besides the city clerk, either the mayor or the mayor pro tem is supposed to sign each check.

“But when we checked with our bank, we learned that they don’t guarantee that they’re not going to cash checks without two signatures,” Browning said.

Baugh allegedly wrote some checks to herself and cashed them without a co-signer. In other instances, Baugh allegedly had then-Mayor Pro Tem Pansy Schell co-sign blank checks to be filled out later for purported city expenses, and then wrote some of them to herself. The mayor said Schell co-signed unwittingly, trusting that the checks would be made out for legitimate city expenses.

“She (Schell) was just as floored as we all were,” Browning said of the board’s discovery of Baugh’s alleged deception.

Schell could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The mayor declined to discuss how many checks were involved in the alleged theft or how many Schell had co-signed. He said he does not recall co-signing any blank checks himself. He said “a few” of the checks in question had just Baugh’s signature on them.

He said the board intends to do what it can to guard against such thefts. He said board members will be talking to the bank officials about additional safeguards. The town’s annual audit for the previous fiscal year is set to begin later this month.

“We’re going to just monitor it all very, very closely, making sure the months’ balances are correct,” Browning said.





How spent?



The mayor of Alba declined to discuss Thursday when the earliest alleged theft of town funds took place during former City Clerk Heather Baugh’s employment or how she might have used the money.

Text Only
Carthage, Jasper County
  • Jim-Spradling-obit.jpg Carthage attorney, reformer of revenue department, dies

    James R. Spradling, a Carthage attorney who was noted for his reform of the Missouri Department of Revenue in the 1970s, died at 5:50 a.m. Monday at McCune-Brooks Regional Hospital.

    August 9, 2010 1 Photo

  • Bondswoman charged with false imprisonment

    A bail bondswoman from Carthage is facing a charge of false imprisonment for allegedly attempting to put a man in jail without a judge’s order, then taking him home and handcuffing him to the banister of a staircase until a friend of the man paid her his bond money.

    January 4, 2012

  • Man’s last statement to be given to defendant

    A judge ruled Monday that the Jasper County prosecutor must provide attorneys for Darren J. Winans with a videotaped statement co-defendant Matthew D. Laurin made about the Sheldon murders shortly before killing himself.

    August 23, 2010

  • Carthage proposes 1.6-cent rise in city property tax

    A drop in the assessed value of Carthage real estate will translate to an increase of about 1.6 cents in the city’s proposed property tax rate.

    August 9, 2010

  • Open house to celebrate projects at courthouse

    Projects completed last year at the Jasper County Courthouse will be celebrated in ceremonies Thursday in the courthouse lobby.
    County officials will join representatives of local chambers of commerce and others for a ribbon-cutting and open house to mark the opening of a Route 66 display in the lobby and a new “peace star” atop the building.

    May 9, 2010

  • Newton County Jail State budget cuts reduce county funds

    County officials are bracing for more state budget cuts to translate into a loss of county revenues.
    In an effort to balance Missouri’s budget, the state earlier this year cut the amount it reimburses county assessors for work to determine property values. The budget approved by lawmakers for fiscal 2011 calls for cutting the amount the state reimburses counties to house prisoners bound for state lockup.

    May 9, 2010 1 Photo

  • Jo Ellis: County home to rare yellowwood tree

    In late spring, drifts as white as snow fill the gutters and curbs on the east side of the Jasper County Courthouse. It isn’t snow, of course; it’s the fallen petals of the yellowwood tree that grows squarely in front of the door to the Jasper County Extension office.

    May 9, 2010

  • Jasper County Commission gets building project update

    Plans to close out one building project and start another were reviewed by the Jasper County Commission last week.
    Darieus Adams, Western District associate commissioner, met Thursday with officials of the firm who designed a $292,400 project to upgrade the lighting and make other changes to make four county-owned buildings more energy efficient.

    May 8, 2010

  • Two men running for associate judge in 39th Circuit take case to court

    Two men running for associate judge in Missouri’s 39th Circuit began battling it out in a Jasper County courtroom this week.
    Jasper County Circuit Judge Gayle Crane heard arguments Wednesday concerning the disclosure of documents sought by Robert “Bobby” George, Aurora, the current Lawrence County prosecutor.

    May 7, 2010

  • Carthage tiger Unveiling ceremony celebrates CHS tiger

    Kandy Frazier, Carthage High School principal, summed it up once the new addition to the CHS campus was unveiled Thursday.
    The bronze tiger sculpture created by Carthage artist and sculptor Bob Tommey, she said, is the kind of work that would be found at a big university.

    May 6, 2010 1 Photo