News that the Town of Tabiona had apparently been taken — again — for more than $110,000 by a town employee sent shockwaves through the community earlier this month.

“I don't know whether to cry or get mad,” Tabiona Town Councilman Rick Wilberg said on Aug. 12 when asked about the allegations against former town clerk Angela Betty Curry.

“I'm ready to stop by the side of the road and slap a horse or something,” a clearly frustrated Wilberg added.

While many expressed outrage or shock, others asked how Curry could have allegedly siphoned at least $140,000 from the town coffers over the past several years without anyone noticing. After all, the town does have a certified public accountant who submits an annual financial report to the state.

But Kent Godfrey, director of the local government division at the state Auditor's Office, said because of the size of Tabiona's budget, the town is not required to undergo a yearly audit or a less-intensive process called a review. Instead, the town is required to submit an annual compilation of its finances to the state.

“There's a big difference between an audit and a compilation,” Godfrey said. “With a compilation, the city or town will tell the CPA, 'These are our numbers,' and (the CPA) takes them and puts them into a statement. … We just look at whether they followed the right format and did they put notes in their statements” indicating possible problems.

The director said there were no problems with Tabiona's paperwork in recent years, aside from the fact that they were not turned in to the state on time in 2008 and 2009.

McNeil Duncan, the Orem-based CPA who performed the compilations for Tabiona in 2008 and 2009, confirmed that the process does not involve any kind of examination of the town's finances.

He said town leaders chose to have him do a compilation instead of a review or audit “because they said they couldn't afford anything else.” The cost of a compilation, according to Duncan, is “quite minor” — on average less than a few thousand dollars — while a review could cost three to four times that amount.

But the numbers in the compilation that Duncan created would have likely come from entries made by Curry into the town's computer system. And Duncan said he would have never had a reason to review the town's bank statements, which Curry allegedly claimed she had sent him when town council members asked to see the statements.

“She kept having excuses and hiding all the bank statements,” Wilberg said. “She was very convincing.”

Curry became the town clerk about four years ago after her mother-in-law, who held the position, was elected to the town council, where she still serves. She is the second clerk to be charged with stealing public funds.

Another former Tabiona clerk pleaded guilty in April 2003 to felony charges of unlawful dealing with property by a fiduciary and forgery. Her pleas were later dismissed as part of an agreement with prosecutors after she repaid the town $111,735.

Officials thought they had implemented sufficient safeguards to prevent a repeat of the 2003 situation, including requiring all checks to bear the signatures of the mayor and one designated councilman.

“But (Curry) forged the mayor and the councilman's signatures on the checks,” Wilberg said.

Tabiona Mayor Ronnie Giles, who filed the initial complaint against Curry with the Duchesne County Sheriff's Office, said he's now working on a plan to prevent the situation from occurring a third time.

“I'm working on it, that's all I can tell you,” Giles said Thursday.

The mayor said Duncan will continue to serve as the town's CPA. A new clerk has been hired to replace Curry, Giles added, and he has directed the bank to send the town's monthly statements directly to him for review.

“I haven't gotten (the plan) really completed yet, but I've got a lot of people coming to help,” he said.