Baxter’s former police chief and city clerk were both arrested after a state audit found tens of thousands of dollars in improper payments from the city.
William Daggett, who later served as Mitchellville police chief and interim city administrator before resigning the day the state audit was released, was charged with first-degree larceny and felonies committed while in office. Former city clerk Katelyn Wilson of Baxter was charged with unauthorized access to a computer, a gross misdemeanor.
Both men were detained on Thursday, January 8. Daggett and Wilson resigned from their positions on February 15, 2024.
The arrests mark the latest escalation in a case that began in January 2024 when newly elected Baxter officials reported financial irregularities and requested state intervention. An audit released in November by Auditor Rob Sand found that about $75,000 was improperly paid out of city funds, much of it related to wages and compensatory time.
The audit found that Daggett received more than $50,000 in improper compensation. Sund said auditors found that the hours he reported working were often inconsistent with the hours he was actually on duty.
“There was a significant discrepancy between the hours his timesheet showed he was on duty and the hours he actually called to say he was on duty,” Sund said at the time.
He was hired by Mitchellville in March 2024 and later served as interim city administrator. In Mitchellville, several city employees have expressed concerns about his behavior, and city officials have requested a state audit of city finances.
As of early Jan. 9, court documents in Daggett’s case had not been made available.
Meanwhile, court records filed in Jasper County outline another set of charges against Wilson.
A criminal complaint alleges that Wilson failed to turn over a laptop owned by the city after he resigned. Investigators said she later accessed the computer system multiple times, “completed large file transfers using the cloud-based large file transfer service ‘We Transfer,’ and deleted files.”
The audit found that Wilson received $3,510 in improper wages and uncovered another $11,295 in unwarranted expenses, including purchases made using the city’s Visa credit card.
A third employee, EMS coordinator Randi Gleam, was also named in the audit because she received approximately $1,461 in improper wages and excess vacation pay that she should not have received. She resigned on February 5, 2024. She has not yet been charged.
Nick El Hajj is a reporter for The Register. He can be contacted via: nelhajj@gannett.com. Follow him on X @nick_el_hajj.
This article originally appeared in the Des Moines Register: Former Baxter police chief and city clerk arrested after state audit
