Duchesne city treasurer charged with misusing public funds

The Duchesne city treasurer has been charged with misusing public funds.

The Duchesne city treasurer has been charged with misusing public funds. (Stefano Ember, Shutterstock)


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KEY TAKEAWAYS
  • The Duchesne city treasurer, Kimberly Kielbasa Hanson, has been charged with misusing public funds.
  • Hanson allegedly received an extra $21,500 over five years by manipulating payroll deductions.
  • She is on administrative leave, and police attempts to interview her were unsuccessful.

DUCHESNE — The Duchesne city treasurer has been arrested and accused of misusing public funds.

Kimberly Kielbasa Hanson, 56, was booked into the Duchesne County Jail on Tuesday and charged Wednesday in 8th District Court with six counts of misuse of public money, two second-degree felonies and four third-degree felonies.

The investigation began in August when police were contacted by Mayor Rodney Rowley about a "possible misuse of public funds," according to a police booking affidavit. The mayor provided investigators with payroll records from 2019 through 2024.

"The records show that during that time period Kim, as well as several other employees, were either not having deductions taken out of their checks, or were having a drastically small amount taken out that did not cover the cost of their medical benefits," the affidavit states.

Detectives then obtained records from the insurance company handling benefits.

"The records from the insurance company show that each invoice sent to the city over that time frame had been paid in full, even though the correct amount of funds to pay the invoice had not been withheld from the payroll. As I looked through the documents from the insurance company, the individuals involved had changed their coverages throughout the time period from 2019 to 2024, but with each change to the policies the amount that needed to be held out changed, and the correct amounts that needed to be withheld were put in wrong. This allowed the difference between what was to be withheld and what was withheld to be given to the employee in their paycheck while still receiving their full medical benefits," the arresting officer wrote.

The mayor informed police that Hanson was the only person who made changes to the payroll system and was "in charge of paying the invoice for the benefits to the insurance company," the affidavit states.

Police say Hanson received an additional $21,500 in her paychecks for about five years because of this. Officers attempted to question Hanson about the situation, but she never met with investigators.

"Several attempts were made to interview Kim to receive clarification on what had occurred, but Kim hired counsel and a date and time (to meet) was unable to be set up," according to the affidavit.

When contacted on Wednesday by KSL.com, Rowley said Hanson has been placed on administrative leave but declined further comment.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Pat Reavy interned with KSL NewsRadio in 1989 and has been a full-time journalist for either KSL NewsRadio, Deseret News or KSL.com since 1991. For the past 25 years, he has worked primarily the cops and courts beat.

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