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CORTLANDT, N.Y. The Town of Cortlandt was cited for having insufficient oversight of gasoline credit cards and diesel fuel tanks used by town officials in a report by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
The Office of the State Comptroller said, among other things, that there was an excessive number of gasoline credit cards issued, that town officials were not required to turn in receipts, and that odometer readings of vehicles were frequently not recorded. Town officials also regularly used each others Personal Identification Numbers (PIN), making personnel oversight more difficult.
They want a little bit tighter controls to avoid any abuses in the future, said Town of Cortlandt Comptroller Glenn Cestaro.
In the report, DiNapoli stated that because of insufficient town record keeping, the risk is increased that town diesel fuel could have been misappropriated for personal use. For example, the State Comptrollers Office selected 49 log entries from the Materials Yard, 19 of which did not have odometer readings, 39 percent, and therefore could not be traced to vehicle usage. The same was true of 25 percent of Highway Department entries selected, and 21 percent of Sanitation Department entries.
The report also said that because the board did not establish policies and procedures governing the use of gasoline credit cards there is a limited assurance that the $86,455 in gasoline purchases made by town employees and officials were for proper town purposes.
DiNapolis office also said the town did not sufficiently reconcile, or oversee, records. DiNapolis office used the example of a town vendors master list of active fleet credit cards showed. The vendors master list had a total of 150 active gasoline credit cards, while the towns master list showed only 120 active gasoline credit cards. The extra 30 cards were not used over the course of the year, and the town said they likely belonged to town employees who no longer worked for the town.
The Office of the State Comptroller did not cite current abuses specifically, but said that insufficient record keeping created an environment where fuel misappropriations would be hard to detect in a timely manner.
The town passed a resolution on July 19, 2011, which instructed Cestaro and the head of the Department of Environmental Services, Jeff Coleman, to create a plan for further oversight of the gas cards. Cestaro said the plan is still in the works, seven months later, and said that a resolution should be in front of the Town Board in the next month.
In a release on Tuesday afternoon, Supervisor Linda Puglisi said, We welcomed the recommendations by the State Comptrollers Office and immediately began plans to improve our system, which was put in place to correct an outdated, informal system many years ago. She added that most town officials only drive their cars during business hours, and take them home only for emergency purposes. Puglisi has a town vehicle that she takes home.
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