New
Hartford bookkeeper ‘retired’ quietly
Fairbrother’s town pay, pension exceeds $101,000
By
ELIZABETH COOPER Posted Jul 17,
2010 @ 01:41 PM NEW
Town leaders say they are surprised to learn
that the town’s longtime bookkeeper, Carol Fairbrother, retired from the town
and started to collect her pension on June 1, 2007. Unbeknownst to town leaders, the bookkeeper
all this time has been collecting a state pension of $3,558 per month, or
$42,696 a year, according to records provided by the state Comptroller’s
Office. Yet Fairbrother has continued to go to work
every day and to collect her $58,714 salary, town officials say and the town’s
2010 budget shows. Total pay annually for Fairbrother: More than
$101,000. “I had no idea at all,” former Town Supervisor
Earle Reed, who was town supervisor at the time, said in a phone message
Thursday. “I don’t think any of us knew about it. I’m completely in the dark
about that.” “You like to have things done right,” he
said. The issue came to light after a notice of
claim was filed by the local watchdog group Concerned Citizens for Honest &
Open government. The notice of claim alleges that Fairbrother
met with then-Town Attorney Gerald Green the day before her retirement became
official “to perfect a demand on town officials in exchange for her silence
concerning highly improper accounting of town revenues and expenditures.” Green is also chairman of the New Hartford
Republican Party. Calls to Green were not returned. Fairbrother declined to comment. Town personnel officer Barbara Aiello did not
return calls from the O-D last week, and Tyksinski said she had told him she
did not wish to speak to the newspaper because she is named in a legalotice of
claim. Fairbrother’s pay has been in the news
before. Two years ago, she received $71,544 in back
overtime for work she did for the town between 2002 and 2007. What the law says State Comptroller’s Office spokesman Mark
Johnson said that because Fairbrother is over 65, she can work at the same job
after retirement and receive the same pay. For state or local government employees under
65, the rules are different. Employees who retire before age 65 must apply for
a waiver, he said. Tyksinski said Aiello had told him that after
an employee turned 65 they could start drawing their pension without retiring
from the town. But Johnson said such employees must formally
retire from the town and then be rehired, even if there is very little time
between the two. “That can take two seconds,” he said. Still,
Fairbrother should have been formally taken off the town payroll and then
reinstated, he said. It appears that did not happen. Town Clerk Gail Young said usually, but not
all the time, when a person retires from the town government, it is announced
at a Town Board meeting. Also, if a person is hired or rehired, the
board must pass a resolution allowing the hire and setting the salary. In Fairbrother’s case, there is no mention of
her retirement or of her being rehired in Town Board minutes, an O-D review
found. Like Reed, Young said she had not known
Fairbrother had retired in 2007. Tyksinski said he wasn’t sure Johnson was
correct, however, in his interpretation of the law. “Fifty percent of the time they are wrong,”
he said of the state Comptroller’s Office. The O-D has filed a Freedom of Information
request for a letter that the Comptroller’s Office sent to the town informing
officials that Fairbrother had filed for retirement and should be taken off the
payroll. Expert’s view One state government specialist, Gerald
Benjamin of SUNY New Paltz, said it is unusual for a government entity to
rehire the same person at the same salary after he or she retired. “Normally, you would not hire the same person
because you were looking for a savings,” he said. If a government wished to retain the person,
they could negotiate a less costly agreement, such as having the person work
part time or for a certain period of time per year, he said. Still, if the town liked Fairbrother, it was
within its rights to keep her, he said. |
