Saturday, August 7, 2010

SCRAPGATE

Show me the money…….
The Town of East Greenbush has multiple issues to resolve, this one is called SCRAPGATE.
The Town Transfer Station accepts scrap metal for recycling. Here is how it works. Town residents can drop off any scrap metal they wish at the transfer station and the transfer station sells the scrap to a vendor. Sounds like a good plan but here is the reality.
Most people who have valuable scrap metal, such as myself, will bring it to the scrap yard ourselves and collect the money paid for it. I have done this multiple times with metals such as copper and brass. The metal is weighed and you receive the money from the scrap yard. What I bring to the transfer station is the junk metal. The transfer station collects it in a dumpster and because it is a mixed load with the majority of the weight more of the less expensive metals, the price per pound is less than if the load was separated, or even if we the residents placed the more valuable metal in with the junk.
I spoke to Joe, if you dump trash or anything else at the transfer station; you too have spoken to Joe. Joe and Reggie are the two guys who are usually there. These two guys are two of the nicest and honest people I have ever met. Joe and I discussed the metal recycling as it is a hot button issue in the Town. Joe showed me the log book in the transfer station office. This is the bound book that Joe writes every transaction in. Joe keeps meticulous records. Joe showed me the page where he tracks the dates when he calls the vendor to pick up the recyclable metal bins. Joe does this even though he has not been required to do so in the past. Joe would call the vendor and they would come and pick up the bin. The vendor would weigh it at his facility and calculate the price for the weight of the metal. Apparently under the current Town supervisor, that is where it all ended. Apparently, under the previous DPW Supervisor, Peter Partack, no records were kept on funds received from the vendor. Ann Taylor analyzed the financials for the transfer station and knew something was wrong. She brought it to the attention of Jim Breig, who looked into it and found we had not been paid since Oct. '08! Jim Breig brought it to the attention of the new DPW Commissioner (January 2010) Chris DeFrucio. Chris went to the vendor and claimed a small portion of the missing payments. The problem is there was never any checks and balances of when the bins were sent in, no one from the Town witnessed the weighing of the bins and no one noticed the lack of payments for two years. This is how Supervisor McCabe defines fiscal responsibility? Mr. McCabe, where are the monthly department reports? Where are the monthly budget reports? Where was the Comptroller who should have realized that an income line suddenly stopped receiving income? Mr. McCabe, you are the Town Supervisor and by law you are solely responsible fiscally for the Town to the residents. Why did it take over two years and someone from outside of the Town management team to discover this missing income? Thank goodness for honest employees who did more than required in book keeping at the transfer station and for the discovery by Ann Taylor and the efficient work of Jim Breig and Chris DeFrucio.

5 comments:

  1. This shows efficiency in gov't. When the Comptroller and DPW Commish work together we see revenue collections and internal controls put into place.
    Nice team work guys!

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  2. Great team work guys! Now we know why we are not seeing a bigger return on the transfer station.

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  3. Joe and Reggie are the best, and in Ann and Mike's blog some people kind of ripped them apart, I think this was unfair to both. They are both have their beliefs just like most people do. They both know and realize that are taxes are way to high in this town for what we receive. So please stop knocking them they had nothing to do with it.

    The people you should be knocking are the people that were in charge, the people that were supposed to be checking this stuff, the people that were supposed to have the best interest of the towns people at heart. Some of those people have been replaced and thank god they have or else this problem may have never been resolved. Hopefully some more get replaced to the coming election. And thank god for Ann her her business sense.

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  4. Hal, now I understand how the scrap metal recycling works. Only thing missing, the "no contract" part. Do people need any more proof concerning the incompetency of this administration?

    Please put this excellent article in the Advertiser with the "no contract" part included.

    Hal, I want to thank you for ALL you are doing to REFORM our town.

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  5. Hal... I hope, if you decide to send this to the Advertiser, you will tell the people of EG how much the bungling, by this administration, COST the residents of our town.

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