Now, officials are scrambling to explain how the county sent $100,000 for after-school programs to the same Murray-based club by using money from a fund strictly reserved for police protection, garbage pickup and other services in unincorporated areas.

The County Council approved the unusual move at the behest of Councilman Randy Horiuchi in November 2003 - but apparently shouldn't have. In June, the current council plans to reimburse the municipal services fund by tapping countywide coffers.

But questions remain about the genesis - and timing - of the $100,000 grant contract, formally signed last summer by then-Chief Administrative Officer David Marshall in Mayor Nancy Workman's stead.

On Friday, Workman insisted squeezing municipal services - even for after-school kids programs - is inappropriate. And she couldn't believe the financial arrangement wasn't "pulled back" since the mayor's office didn't finalize the deal until "just before everything blew up" - a reference to the felony charges she faced for using Health Department money to help her daughter keep the books at the Boys & Girls Clubs.

The municipal services fund ''is not like the Health Department fund, which as I found out is really sacred, but it shouldn't have happened."

So how did it?

"This whole thing is Randy's. Nobody else," said Marshall, who nonetheless signed the eventual contract for the grant. "It didn't make any sense to me, ever."

Horiuchi explains that the municipal-services source was used deliberately, insisting the afternoon program was a "pilot" project intended only for children in the unincorporated areas.

"We wanted to use if for latchkey kids," he said, noting the idea was modeled after similar after-school services in Salt Lake City. "We limited the program to unincorporated kids."

That didn't happen, according to contracts obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune through the Government Records Access and Management Act.

A proposal for the club's "After-School Education Program" suggests classes were held in Murray (an incorporated city) and served kids from four school districts plus private schools.

"There's no question there's kids in it that live in Murray, Sandy, Draper, Salt Lake City and all over," said Bob Dunn, executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs. "It's never been strictly for unincorporated county."

Karl Hendrickson, chief deputy for the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office, says he doesn't consider the transaction criminal, but he stressed that the municipal fund must be reimbursed.

"It clearly slipped through the cracks," he said.

Three nonprofit groups filed formal requests for the money last year. In April, Workman handpicked a selection committee that included Horiuchi, Community Services Director Leslie Reberg (who was confirmed as Committee of Consumer Services director earlier this week), Councilman Michael Jensen, then-Deputy Mayor Alan Dayton along with then-community-relations specialist Kara Trevino and then-Zoo, Arts and Parks tax administrator Kristie Marshall (daughter-in-law of David Marshall, who still works for the county).

According to Richard Chamberlain, Contracts and Procurement Division director, who sat as a nonvoting member, the group unanimously selected the South Valley Boys & Girls Clubs for the grant.

"Everybody seemed to feel they had the best proposal," Chamberlain recalled.

Weeks earlier, the Murray nonprofit agency had lost a $25,000 federal grant after officials disclosed that Workman's daughter, Aisza Wilde, served on a county committee that allocated block-grant money. Wilde then was serving as the Boys & Girls Clubs chief financial officer.

The county contract giving the agency four times as much money was signed Aug. 9, 2004, one month before the District Attorney's Office leveled two felonies against Workman for siphoning Health Department funds to pay successive bookkeepers at the Murray club. Jurors cleared Workman in February, but not before the embattled mayor was temporarily removed from office and eventually gave up her re-election bid.

Contract officials concede the selection committee was arranged by Workman. "It all flowed from the mayor's office," Chamberlain said. But they insist the timing of the $100,000 grant - after the state yanked the club's $25,000 grant - was coincidental.

"They're not connected at all," insists Michael Gallegos, community resources and development division director.

Horiuchi, a member of the selection committee, said Friday, "I'm not sure I knew at the time that Aisza [Wilde] worked at the Boys & Girls Club."