The Peru Gazette

Cortland Forrence took the gavel in hand at the Monday, September 28, 2009 Town Board meeting in his new role as Deputy Supervisor. The primary reason for appointing a Deputy Supervisor was the legal requirement of presenting a tentative budget to the Town Board and Forrence presented a budget at this meeting. He said he had spent about fifty hours in its preparation and believed the tentative budget is a good starting point in the board’s budget-making process.

The Board scheduled 2010 budget workshops. All workshops begin at 6 p.m.

• October 1 – General
• October 8 – Highway
• October 14 – Water & Sewer
• October 19 – Final Workshop

The Board also scheduled a Health Care workshop for October 15^th.

During the pubic input part of the meeting Robert Duquette, Deputy Supervisor from January 2006 to January 2007, addressed the Board regarding an article published in the September 18^th issue of the Press Republican. An article in that issue quoted Counselor Peter Glushko saying he would be “hesitant to agree” to Duquette’s appointment as deputy supervisor and directing people to read the 2006 NYS Comptroller’s Report to understand why. Duquette read a letter from former Town Supervisor Donald Covel (who took office January 1, 2006) which claimed that Duquette did not have any role in the condition of the town’s financial records or auditing procedures during the Comptroller’s audit period (The audit period was January 1, 2005 – November 5, 2006). Covel stated that Glushko was Deputy Supervisor (January 1 – December 31, 2005) and in that capacity conducted required board audits. Covel wrote that the Comptroller was highly critical of the Town Supervisor and the Town Board for a lack of internal audit controls, for failure to properly handle cash receipts, for inaccurate cash disbursement records and for improper handling of capital projects and reserves.  Duquette requested that Glushko apologize.  Duquette also claimed that it was Covel who initiated the Comptroller’s audit and provided a copy of a 2005 letter which he said Councilman Covel had written to the Comptroller’s Office requesting an audit of the Town of Peru because of what Covel believed to be accounting issues in 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. 

Responding to Duquette’s remarks Counselor Peter Glushko said, “I do hope people read the Comptroller’s audit report as opposed to an interpretation of the audit report. It does say the Town Board sent a letter and they came here in response to that and not to this letter (referring to Covel’s 2005 letter). Read the report for yourselves. You’ll find out for yourselves what the important errors were, what the important lack of information was.  Please do read that. It is available. You can google it. We have copies of it around here. We did respond to it. We have fixed some of the things that were sloppy, some of the handling of paperwork. Things that were not being signed were taken care of right then and there. We’re running a lot better. Please read the report as opposed to having someone read it to you.” (Here is a link to the Comptroller’s report)

Mr. Glushko also disagrees with Mr. Covel’s statement that Duquette did not have any role in the condition of the town’s financial records during the Comptroller’s audit period. Glushko told the Gazette, “Mr. Duquette was listed as budget officer. He was paid as budget officer and he was providing financial information to the Town Board in 2006.”

Both Counselor Tom Powers and Cortland Forrence commented that new policies and procedures have been put into place to implement the Comptroller’s recommendations. Cortland Forrence said that he contacted the Comptroller’s office about the possibility of having the town’s procedures reviewed once again. He said the town’s rapid growth and the fact that some personnel may have been taking on more tasks than they should have been may have lead to some of the problems cited in the audit.

In other actions:

Counselor Glushko proposed that the persons elected to the Supervisor and two-year town board positions on November 3rd be appointed to the board at the meeting following the certification of the election. Counselor Tom Powers voted “no” citing his interpretation of the Town Law believing that there was a September 20^th deadline on the Town Board authority to make this decision. Town Attorney Donald Biggs disagreed with Power’s interpretation believing that the Board could take this action. The Deputy Supervisor does not have a vote and since three votes are required Glusko’s resolution was defeated.

The Board approved a transfer of $63,599 from the fuel/diesel budget line to the capital improvement budget line of the highway department budget. The cost of paving the River Rd. and Allen Hill Rd. exceeded estimates by that amount. Highway Superintendent Michael Farrell explained that he had to lay a proper base on the road prior to paving. He said he was not going to spend $168,000 paving a highway without laying a proper base. A proper base greatly extends the useful life of pavement. The money was available because the previous Highway Superintendent Robbie Timmons had included extra monies in the fuel account anticipating higher fuel costs. Fortunately fuel costs were lower than expected.