A recent review by an outside accountant uncovered errors in the town’s accounts, according to town officials.

After deficiencies were found in the fiscal year-end audits for 2005 and 2006, said Selectman Tom Gilligan, and the town’s administrative assistant being on medical leave for 14 weeks, the Board of Selectmen brought in CPA Carrol Coppola on March 13 to review the town’s accounts.

What she found were mistakes in data entry, typographical errors and several revolving funds from 2006 that were mistakenly never set up, Gilligan said.

The town’s administrative assistant, Kelly Collins, was on leave for 14 weeks after a skiing accident, and Gilligan said there were several people helping to fill her shoes, including a retired municipal worker from Hooksett, a secretary at the town hall and at least one town official.

“Those people all tried their best to help us, and we’re finding out in some cases they actually made several mistakes,” Gilligan said, adding he wants to ensure residents that none of the individuals involved are suspected of stealing at this point.

Town officials have come under fire before for financial manipulations, including the former police chief, James McGonigle, who embezzled thousands of dollars from the Allenstown Police Association.

“The Board of Selectmen does not suspect any wrongdoing or malice from any town employee. Everything is traceable, it’s just a matter of realigning expenditures,” Gilligan said.

“With the history we have in town, we take these matters extremely seriously. That’s always our first thought is to make sure there’s no improprieties,” he added.

Collins is now back at work, and has worked out a schedule and time line for when the problems that she can fix will be addressed and has listed the issues she will need outside help for, Gilligan said.

At this point, the town has not finished validating all the errors, Gilligan said, and has not determined whether any of the them were Collins’ fault.

The town is also working with the Local Government Center to institute better controls on the data entry, including more stringent password protection.

The town is under a spending freeze, Gilligan said, until all the numbers are cleared up.