Muddy Creek Township residents should be satisfied with the financial safeguards that the township supervisors have put in place in the aftermath of a former township secretary's alleged theft of more than $108,800 between March 2005 and October 2008.

But while they might be satisfied with that response, residents no doubt have questions about the crime that, understandably, aren't likely to be answered for some time, due to the ongoing criminal investigation.

One question that no doubt is on many residents' minds is how the alleged thefts could have gone on for so long without the township's yearly audit detecting a problem.

Actually, the audit for 2006 did identify a problem, as did a subsequent re-examination of the 2005 audit based on the discrepancies found for 2006.

The audit for 2007 also identified problems.

However, the roadblock to the discrepancies being corrected in 2006 was that the audit report had to go through the former township secretary, Dixie Lynn Christy, 38, who now faces 209 felony counts including forgery, access device fraud, theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception and receiving stolen property.

Still, for township residents, that leaves the lingering question of the supervisors' approval of the audits for 2006 and 2007. Did they not review the audits and the accompanying audit reports before voting to approve them?

At the conclusion of the Christy case, the supervisors should come forward with an explanation.

From the board of supervisors' standpoint, an audit is not meant to be a rubber-stamp process.

According to Supervisor Rick Saunders, who at a meeting Monday answered a number of questions relating to the alleged thefts, the measures implemented since October in response to the missing money have included the hiring of a private company to handle payroll.

In addition, the township has changed its accounting software; the new setup cannot be manipulated in the way the former system could be.

Meanwhile, all three township supervisors must sign checks — a requirement that wasn't in place during Christy's employment.

Possible inconvenience in acquiring all of those signatures is secondary to the additional safeguard of having additional eyes examining each check.

Unlike bigger, more-extensive township operations, like those of Cranberry and Butler townships, for instance, smaller townships sometimes feel they have the luxury to be less stringent in how they conduct their operations and oversee their financial matters.

However, no municipality — of any size — can afford such an attitude, and Muddy Creek's problem is excellent, albeit troubling, proof of that.

"There's a lot we can't say because it's still under investigation," Saunders said, explaining why he was declining to comment on certain questions, such as who had signed off on payroll checks while Christy was secretary.

But township residents will be justified in demanding a full explanation after the case concludes — no matter how embarrassing that explanation might be to the officials in power.

It was township residents' $108,800 in tax revenues that, according to investigators, was misused. And it was the supervisors — the elected leaders of the township — who were ultimately responsible for seeing to it that township funds were spent wisely and properly.

The case is a sad chapter in Muddy Creek Township history that must never be allowed to be repeated.