State comptroller to audit Rotterdam after all
By Kate Seckinger March 10, 2016
A month after saying an audit wasn’t planned for the town of Rotterdam, the Office of the State Comptroller has had a change of heart.
This week, board members received a letter from Jeffrey Leonard, the chief examiner with the comptroller, stating Rotterdam had been selected for an audit.
The audit will focus on the town’s financial operations, according to the letter, including annual financial reports, budgets, cash receipts, revenue ledgers, bank statements, IRS and state tax records, payroll records and other items.
The period of time the audit will cover will be determined after the state completes its preliminary assessment of the town’s operations.
“We plan to begin audit fieldwork within the next several weeks,” Leonard wrote. “At the conclusion of our audit, we will report on the audit’s results and provide recommendations to help improve your town’s operations.”
In December, Republican Councilmen Joe Villano and Rick Larmour submitted a 36-page request to the state comptroller to investigate the town’s financial practices after accusing Rotterdam’s previous administration of illegal fund transfers and financial inefficiencies.
Villano said funds from the water, sewer and other special districts had been wrongly transferred into the town’s general fund for use in other departments, including personnel costs in the Police Department.
“I’m thrilled,” Villano said Wednesday of the town’s impending state audit. “This will direct our focus to making Rotterdam structurally a better place than simply sending money to payroll lines. There be a reckoning where the town of Rotterdam will have to make good on the monies they’ve inappropriately taken from the these funds.
“At this point, that number is in the millions.”
Former Supervisor Harry Buffardi told The Gazette in January he “wasn’t aware of the illegal transfers” Villano has referred to and he had “no reason to believe anything was done inappropriately.”
In his Feb. 26 letter, Leonard said key town officials will “have a role in monitoring any corrective actions that need to be taken as a result of this audit.”
“I welcome that opportunity,” Villano said of being interviewed by the comptroller’s office. “I’ve also spoken with former board member Robert Godlewski, who has indicated his interest in speaking with them as well.”
Villano said the alleged misappropriations were inherited by the town’s new administration, but the new board has not made any motions to return the money to its proper funds.
But, current town Supervisor Steve Tommasone told The Gazette last month that “They’re not illegal transfers, they’re an appropriate allocation of expense so our residents and business owners are paying for what services they are receiving — every municipality should be doing that.” He said information supplied by Villano is “not evidentiary of any wrongdoing or anything the town comptroller’s office has done inappropriately.”
Tommasone said Thursday that he welcomes any inquiries from the state.
“I don’t believe this has to specifically do with Mr. Villano and Larmour’s requests because I do not see a reason for them to come in based on the issues brought up in the councilmembers’ correspondence,” Tommasone said. “We’re due for an audit anyway. We’ve had several different people in there between board members and supervisors and I think it’s a good thing.”
Brian Butry, the deputy press secretary with the Office of the State Comptroller, said the state’s last audit of the town was in 2009 and a report was issued in January 2010.
“There are no requirements [to audit a municipality],” Butry said Thursday. “There are a number of factors that go into our decision to audit a local government,” he said.
Councilmen Larmour and Villano said they are confident the audit will uncover illegal, inappropriate transfers they’ve been against from the start.
“We suffered for a couple of years knowing what was happening was wrong, and people need to be held accountable,” Larmour said Wednesday. “I just hope everything comes out. We need for them to say that this will not be tolerated in this in the town anymore so it never happens again.”
Reach Gazette reporter Kate Seckinger at 395-3113, kseckinger@dailygazette.net or @KateSeckinger on Twitter.
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