In July, State Auditor General Jack Wagner's office released an audit report that alleged the former secretary of Elizabeth Borough misappropriated $15,710 of the borough's funds by writing herself additional paychecks, making payments on her student loans and reimbursing herself for vacation, holiday and personal time she was not entitled to.

On Oct. 17, Cora King, who served as Elizabeth Borough secretary from November 2000 until December 2006, was charged by the Allegheny County District Attorney's office with two counts of theft by unlawful taking.

According to the affidavit of probable cause filed with Elizabeth Borough District Justice Beth Scagline Mills, Ms. King was charged with theft for writing extra paychecks totalling $4,632 to herself and for writing borough checks totalling $3,305 to the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency.

"I'm really happy that this is finally moving forward," said borough council President Monica Douglas. "This investigation started back in January, it's been almost 10 months."

But just how quickly the wheels of justice will be able to spin isn't clear. That's because Ms. King left the area before the auditor general's report was issued last summer.

"We're just not sure where she is," Ms. Douglas said.

Ms. King was laid off from her position as borough secretary in December 2006, along with other employees as a result of a shortfall of funds, said Ms. Douglas, who took on the borough secretary job on a volunteer basis at the time.

The borough had planned to call the employees back to work after Jan. 1, 2007, the start of a new budget year. But in the meantime, borough officials had started to discover some financial irregularities and Ms. King chose to resign, Ms. Douglas said.

Eventually borough officials turned their findings over to the state auditor general, who initiated an audit.

According to affidavit filed by district attorney's detective William Miller, an audit by the state auditor general's office in May "determined that certain amounts of state funds earmarked for pension were being used by the Elizabeth Borough General Fund."

That irregularity "led to a more detailed examination of borough finances" that found the checks that Ms. King allegedly wrote for her own use.

According to the affidavit, there were nine unauthorized Elizabeth Borough payroll account checks made to PHEAA dated between Sept. 18, 2003 and March 10, 2005 totalling $3,305.

Each of those checks had Ms. King's social security number written in the memo line, but no garnishments were ever withheld from her paychecks to reimburse the borough, the affidavit said.

Interviews with past and current Elizabeth Borough council members indicated to investigators that Ms. King had never been given permission to write those checks from borough funds.

The affidavit said the state audit found Elizabeth Borough used an outside payroll company to process payroll checks, but that Ms. King "maintained a separate manual checkbook" that she used for pay advances and pension funding. This bank account required only one signature on the checks and Ms. King was an authorized signer.

Payroll advance checks were sometimes authorized if a payday fell during an employee's vacation. However, the advance is to be repaid when the employee returns from vacation, according to the affidavit.

The affidavit said that Ms. King used the account to issue herself payroll advances in the total amount of $4,632 during the time frame between Feb. 4, 2003 and Aug. 23, 2005. There was no evidence that Ms. King ever repaid the advances.

In addition to the funds that are connected to the theft charges, the auditor general's report alleged that Ms. King received compensation from the borough for 836 hours of vacation, holiday and personal leave that she was not entitled to receive as a part-time employee. That compensation totaled $8,270.

The audit also found fluctuation in the amount of trash collection fees collected by the borough. In 2004, the estimated revenue was $57,530, but just $37,399 was collected. In 2005, $55,408 was collected, a number close to the estimate, but in 2006 just $42,728 was collected.

In 2007 after Ms. King resigned as secretary, the estimated revenue for trash collection was $60,145 and the borough collected $69,762.

For the years 2004, 2005, 2006, it was impossible for borough officials to tell if the $125 trash collection fees weren't paid or if they were paid but not deposited because there were no receipts for residents who paid the fees.

The audit report also found irregularities in employees' reimbursement payments for cell phones. The borough permitted employees to contract for cell phone service with Nextel through the borough's plan in order to get a discount, but the employees were required to reimburse the borough.

Ms. King required the employees to make those reimbursements in cash. According to the audit, those reimbursement payments were not being used to pay the Nextel bill, as it was "$6,000 in arrears for at least part of the time the former secretary was in charge of collecting reimbursement."

Ms. Douglas, who had stepped into the secretary's role on a voluntary basis after Ms. King resigned, said the borough has taken steps to strengthen its accounting and financial procedures and to prevent further abuses of borough funds, many of which were recommended in the auditor general's report.

In addition, in May 2007, the borough hired a new secretary, Robin Stockton, who is following all of the recommendations of the auditor general's report.