Audit: Town records deliberately destroyed

An audit made public Friday showed that the former top administrators in East Hampton Town's human-services department spent their final weeks on the job last October deliberately destroying records -- including those that could be needed to show how state or federal grant money was used.

Town budget director Len Bernard briefed the town board about the audit at its meeting Thursday night, and said that several workers in the department saw administrators regularly shredding documents.

Though the audit did not cite misappropriation of funds, it did say the town needs to implement better guidelines regarding management and procedures.

In addition, Bernard said the auditors, Nawrocki Smith of Melville, found empty folders with tabs listing what materials should have been in them. There is about $200,000 in federal and state grant money in the budget.

While he and others on the town board were careful not to name the administrators Thursday, Bernard said the auditing firm has been discussing its findings with the Suffolk district attorney's office. The district attorney's office declined to comment Friday.

Bernard said the audit uncovered 26 separate problems with the finances of the department, which has an annual budget of $2.5 million and is responsible for the town's senior programs.

"A number of records were destroyed or missing . . . We believe they were shredded in October by the people who retired," Bernard said. He added that several attempts have been made to question those former employees, but they had refused to discuss the matter.

In September, town officials announced that budgetary issues meant a dozen jobs would have to be cut from the department, which had 52 workers at the time. Several veteran employees took voluntary retirement, including Edna Steck, who had been director for 25 years.

"I have not read the report, so I couldn't comment on any of it," Steck said Friday.

While Steck's name was not mentioned Thursday, former town board member Debra Foster, who attended the meeting, accused the town board of staging "a public hanging" by discussing the audit in public.

"I worked with these women, and I know what they have done for the town," she said.

The town board plans to hold an executive session Tuesday to discuss the audit findings with officials from Nawrocki Smith. Bernard said that, based on interim reports, six of the problem areas identified in the audit have been corrected. Among them:

Missing employment records from 2007-09;

Missing resumes that should have been kept on file;

Indications that some workers who received a car allowance were also paid for their mileage; and

No documentation showing that psychotherapy providers actually had a license to perform the work.

Bernard said that once the town decided an audit was needed, all files and records in the department were sealed until they could be reviewed.

With Sophia Chang