Write 6-7 Sentences For Your Response: Did the City of Dixon have the appropriate internal controls? What elements do you think they fell short in? Information Welcome to Dixon Illinois about an hour and a half west of bustling Chicago but it has the genteel feel of a small town from the Dixon arch, a lucky horseshoe that hangs over the quaint community to the bright white boyhood home of Ronald Reagan. Reagan isn't just Dixon's claim to fame, he's a symbol of the town's virtue over at City Hall generations of Mayors have kept watch over the town and its traditions. That job is now fallen to Jim Burke Dixon's mayor for the past 15 years. If I want to find out what's on the people's minds, I go out go through the Walmart store and I find out before I leave there. What people are thinking about nobody's afraid to share in their opinions, not at all. Mayor Burke may have the office and the title but as everyone knows. It's the treasurer who really runs the town and for more than 20 years. That person was Rita crun well looking at her Dixon high school yearbook. She looks like she was bom to be a bean-counter. She was a member of the school's young business association and parlayed that into a job at City Hall when she was just a teen soon. She'd be in charge of every municipal penny in Dixon. The farmer's daughter who grew up on a ranch down the road and made good. I could go in and ask her for say some contract with some utility company or something that might have been fifteen years old and just within seconds. She could put her hands right on it. She knew where everything was at. She had your trust in your confidence. Yeah, she did. Kathy Swanson, the town clerk considered Rita, her mentor. Everybody loved Rita. She had a pretty smile. She knew her job, people trusted her. She would say to the commissioner don't worry boss. I'll take care of that and we grew to trust her. When Rita took over Dixon's books, the town was running a healthy surplus. Slowly a mysterious, downturn set in and finances got tighter and no one could get a red cent from Rita. She illustrated her budget reports with cartoons to make sure everyone got the message. She told the police to stretch every dollar, she told the fire department Dixon was drowning in debt. The financial outlook downright scary. There was no money to pay the ruddy streets. Rita would only allow a few potholes to be filled. So how many people have working for you now. Six and that but that's gone down over time. There at one time there was four King streets Commissioner Jeff Koons said his trucks were rusting to bits so he asked Rita for money to replace them never. We never got it to work the best I could ever get was four tires for an in loader otherwise I got no new equipment the whole time. She was here. All I got was tires even the dead couldn't escape the wrath of Rita. She raided the maintenance budget for the town cemetery to pay other bills, new money sure when hell freezes over. Other bills new money freezes over, were you worried about the future of the city? Absolutely. Rita knew everything about the town's finances but most people knew little about her. She kept to herself and rarely socialized with co-workers including the Mayor, who should known for 40 years. She was always friendly but there was always kind of an invisible shield at least. I felt between me and Rita. There was just a shield you couldn't get by it. There was something, there all right for a small-town girl. She led a glam orous life. She had a couple of ranches near Dixon The word in town was she was privately wealthy, her co-workers got a taste of that one day when she invited some of them out to her ranch inside. They saw her sprawling trophy room, cowhide furniture even a six-shooter chandelier. It was like Dallas had come to Dixon. She had pitch a big tent. she'd have a big party going free barbecue for everybody and she's footing the bill for the whole thing. What did you think of that? I had a good time, I did, I had a really good time to her colleagues. She still may have seemed a bit distant. Dixon's doctor, no, but it tums out she had a heart for her horses last year. We showed him in the Masters at the Congress and he won there in any one. The open and the amateur here in the wind lien class. He's how does she scores makes me cry because she's one of my favorite mares. Rita was indeed wealthy investing her money in prize-winning show horses. She was the quarter horse queen of the Midwest racking up 69 national championships receiving the world championship trophy. She would dominate competitions with her horses as well as her poise and presence. Everybody loved Rita but in a small town. People bagan to whisper whew was she getting the money to bankroll this lifestyle. Where did you believe her wealth was coming from. I thought it was all from the horse business. She had this ranch and think she's really doing well in the horse business. I honestly thought she made her money in the horse business. Dixon, on the other hand was bleeding money. The Mayor had his gnawing feeling in the pit of his gut. He went to Dixon's outside auditor to see if she suspected that maybe just maybe. Rita was up to something sneaky. She says she handle a lot of communities and a lot of county govemments and she said I'll tell you one thing. There isn't anybody smarter handles the books any better than Rita cron so that sent me out the door with my tail between my leg but this tale would take a twist. One day when Rita was away at a horse show Kathy Swanson was going through. Some financial records normally for Rita's eyes only that's when she stumbled upon an account she'd never seen before she went to the Mayor. I said Jim I think something's terribly wrong so I told him about the statement. He said go and get it. He made a copy of it and he said I'm going to call the FBI could it be that Rita cron. Dixon's longtime treasurer and trusted by all who knew. Her was a crook you betcha even more shocking should be draining Dixon for more than two decades