And You Thought It Was Bad In North Greenbush

Remember the $21,000 of taxpayer money paid to C.B. Smith by the A.S.S. Team administration, without any proof of work product?   Well it looks like the same game is being played in East Greenbush, only worse!!!!!

In East Greenbush, if you’re the tax collector you get extra money to “deposit” the taxes you collected,  and the Town Supervisor gets “overtime”.

It appears some members of the  East Greenbush Democratic Committee, who also hold appointed and elected positions  have been getting “bonuses” cleverly disguised as “stipends”.   At a time when town workers are going without raises, and the town is $2 million in debt, these people rewarded themselves with extra pay, and did it without town board approval.

Considering these are the same people who joined together with the North Greenbush Dems, and filed a lawsuit to remove Lou Desso, Mike Cristo and Phil Danaher from office,  we can only speculate where that $1 million surplus North Greenbush had went when.

Anyway, here is a recording of the Al Roney show (click Al Roney to listen) where Mike Cristo and Ann Taylor talked about what is going on.  I’ve also attached a piece from The Record.

Considering all that’s going on with the Troy Dems, and now this, I suspect it won’t be long before the A.S.S. is facing charges.

McCabe calls stipend controversy ‘a political witch hunt’

Sunday, September 19, 2010

By Cecelia Martinez
The Record

EAST GREENBUSH – A former Town Board member and members of the East Greenbush Finance Committee have raised concerns over stipends given to town employees between 2006 and 2009 totaling more than $145,000. Town Supervisor Rick McCabe said the giving of stipends has been going on for decades, and that he “takes full responsibility,” saying he believed the employees deserved “extra money for extra work.”

Former Town Board member Mike Cristo, along with current Board Member Rick Matters and Finance Committee members Don Johnson and Ann Taylor first became aware of the stipends after Cristo was approached by a town employee who he claims told Cristo that he had “taken away my $6,000.” During the 2010 budget process, the board removed a $60,000 budget line for “miscellaneous expenses” after they were unable to get answers from the town about how the money was used.

“That raised a definite red flag because miscellaneous budget lines are never over $10,000,” said Taylor. Johnson filed a Freedom of Information Law request for documents regarding the stipends, which show that 14 former and current employees, including Supervisor McCabe and his daughter Lauren, received annual stipends ranging from just over $100 to $7,500.

The stipends were dispersed as part of the employees’ biweekly pay, boosting the salaries in a way that Cristo, Matters, Johnson and Taylor feel may constitute pension padding. Matters also pointed out that, in addition to the monies paid directly to the employees, the town also would have been required to pay payroll taxes and retirement contributions for that additional income.

Matters, who said he gave up his Town Board salary two years in a row to the tune of nearly $30,000, felt that, given the fiscal difficulties of the town, the notion of specific employees receiving stipends in a “stealth manner” offended him.

“The monies were essentially buried in the budget,” said Matters. Johnson pointed to Article 3, Section 5 of town law that states salaries must be set during the budget and cannot be altered without a resolution by the Town Board. He explained that, because the board approves the specific employee salaries and the overall department salary budgets separately, it would be difficult to catch the discrepancy.

McCabe said that the money for the stipend was included in the budget, but not the specific amounts each individual would get. He said stipends were awarded for a variety of reasons, such as employees taking on extra duties to make up for reduced staff or, in his own case, to go towards phone and mileage expenses. He said the amounts were decided at the beginning of each year, but some of the reasons on the documents include “extra hours” and “nights and weekends”.

“This is a political witch hunt by the opposition,” said McCabe, who claimed that Cristo was upset after losing his Town Board position last year after it was determined Cristo could not hold simultaneous political seats. “If I wanted to hide anything, why would I keep the documents on the record as part of the FOIL-able file?”

McCabe said they stopped the giving of stipends after a report by the State Comptroller’s Office earlier this year recommended the practice be discontinued.

“They said it was legal but that it was frowned upon, so we don’t do it anymore,” he said. McCabe could not immediately produce the report Saturday, but said there was a copy at Town Hall. When asked if he felt it was appropriate to take $10,000 in stipend money over two years while the town is over $2.5 million in debt, McCabe said his expenses add up to “much more” than what he received.

Regarding stipends given to other employees, he added: “The town has to function. These people who are crying about ‘taxpayer dollars’ and the stipends, I guarantee that the first time their water stops running, or the roads aren’t paved, they’re the first ones on the phone complaining. We don’t [give stipends] anymore, so that’s that.”

Based on a resolution approved by the Town Board, an official opinion on the propriety and legality of the stipends and the manner in which they were issued has been requested by the State Comptroller’s Office, and the matter has been forwarded to the Public Integrity Bureau of the Attorney General’s Office.

“The wheels of government turn very slowly,” said Taylor, who noted that nearly all of the employees receiving stipends are Democrats, and some are also Democratic Committee members. She and Cristo also claimed that the recent action of placing Department of Public Works Commissioner Christopher DeFruscio on administrative leave was political retribution for the stipend controversy coming to light.

“I cannot talk about the issue regarding DeFruscio as it’s a personnel matter, but it is absolutely, positively not political,” said McCabe.

Matters said that he hopes the town receives the opinion from the Comptroller’s Office in a timely manner, and said that, if suspicions were confirmed that the stipends practice was improper or illegal, appropriate ramifications would take place. He declined to speculate what those ramifications may be.

Cecelia Martinez can be contacted at 270-1294 or by e-mail at cmartinez@troyrecord.com.