Our view: Reed must now focus on town’s future

Observer-Dispatch

Posted May 25, 2009 @ 09:14 PM

Now that New Hartford Town Supervisor Earle Reed has decided not to seek re-election in November, he needs to spend the reminder of his term initiating and conducting a public dialogue on how town government should be structured.

This can lay some groundwork for his successor, who will be assuming control of a town at the crossroads.
Reed announced last week that he would not seek a second term — several days after the Observer-Dispatch reported that the town’s main rainy-day fund had nosedived from $2.8 million to just $250,000 since he took office in 2006. Reed said he “dropped the ball,” and took full responsibility for the financial problems.

Such candor is unusual for a public official, who often tries to pin blame elsewhere. Fact is, in this case, blame can also be placed on town board members — some of whom have been publicly silent on the issue — who share responsibility for this financial fiasco. While the overseer of town finances might be the supervisor, board members, too, are guardians of public dollars and have failed the people who elected them by not keeping track of their money.

One of Reed’s suggestions is for the town to hire a comptroller, and that idea certainly needs to be part of the public discussion. The position was eliminated in January 2002 by then-Town Supervisor Ralph Humphreys and approved by the board as a way to save money.

That hasn’t been the case. Since the job was scrapped, it has actually cost the town a considerable sum for accounting and financial services, most of which could have been handled by a professional financial officer.

The discussion needs to begin now. And part of the dialogue needs to be a public explanation of what went wrong and what safeguards must be put in place to make sure this never happens again.