(MCT) — CHICAGO —To get across her point that Dixon’s budget woes necessitated cost-cutting, city comptroller Rita Crundwell each year sent department heads memos topped with cartoon characters — a scared cat, a pair of scissors cutting a dollar sign and even a man drowning.

According to a federal prosecutor, the apparent attempt at humor was really “a psychological tool to discourage the individuals in different departments from requesting money because the more money that was spent on legitimate city items the less money that would be available for taking.”