Greenville council took formal steps Tuesday to launch a criminal investigation of the borough's past fiscal and management practices.

Councilman David P. Henderson made the motion to direct borough solicitor Warren Keck III to send a letter to the Mercer County District Attorney's Office calling for the probe. Councilman Pete Longiotti seconded the motion, which was unanimously approved by council.

Keck said he would send the letter to the DA's office today. District Attorney James P. Epstein was uanvailable for comment this morning; he is out of the office until Monday.

Henderson said he hopes the scope of the probe is "broad." Everyone who has worked with borough funds in recent years should be interviewed and all money used by the borough should be tracked to determine if anything illegal was done, he said.

"Let's get right down to the mud and find out exactly what happened. Maybe nothing criminal was done, but it's important to clear the names of the innocent and, if anything illegal was done, to identify who did it," Henderson said.

Councilman Ian Scott Forbes said the probe should be broad. He said investigators should follow the money spent on "the sports complex, the fire station, the streetscape, the seascape, the landscape, whatever."

Henderson initially called for a criminal investigation in January, and there have been repeated calls from residents, as well as the Greenville Area Chamber of Commerce since. Before Tuesday, however, council did not take any steps to initiate an investigation.

Longiotti renewed the call for an investigation last week when the borough was declared a financially distressed community under the state's Act 47 program. The borough has spent beyond its means for six years, running up a $1.1 million budget deficit.

Borough officials kept the town afloat since 2000 by using nearly $1 million of a $3.7 bond issue for expenses other than the projects the money was reserved for. That use was unauthorized, according to the bond agreement and has drained the bond fund and jeopardized some of the projects.