Auditing Research Paper
City of Dixon Embezzlement

11/6/2012
ACC 235

Growing up in a small town, Rita Crundwell spent most of her life very close to the town of Dixon. She was from a well brought up, hard working family and was one of six children. Her family was very interested in horses and would participate in horse shows while the children were growing up. Rita was an honors student while in high school, landing in the top 20 out of 300 students who were in the National Honors Society (Smith, 2012). Although she graduated high school, Rita did not continue her education. The reason being that while in high school, she landed a part-time job at City Hall. Darlene Herzog, who was Dixon’s comptroller at the time, convinced Rita to stay with City Hall because she caught onto everything so quickly and was a great asset to the team. Through her hard work, Rita was able to advance herself, moving from secretary and then to treasurer. After 12 years of working with City Hall, in 1983, she replaced Darlene Herzog, who had to retire due to health problems. This placed Rita at the top of the financial department of City Hall, being named both the treasurer and the comptroller. It was the start of what would eventually lead her to be taken out of her office in handcuffs almost 30 years later. Dixon is a small town in the northern part of Illinois. It has a population of nearly 16,000 and was never rolling around in the excess money the town owned. In fact, Dixon had a relatively small budget (in 2012, their budget is $47 million) and was struggling to make minor improvements that were necessary to the town. Rita’s annual salary was $80,000. Aside from working with the town, she also continued her childhood love for horses and was competing regularly in horse shows. The town knew she was very successful with the shows, so no one ever