Newtown Summer Youth Program Audit Leads to Criminal Investigation

An audit looking into three Newtown summer youth programs has led city manager Robert Bartolotta to ask police to begin a criminal investigation into allegations of double billing by a city employee.

Late Tuesday night, commissioners received an audit report from internal audit manager Heather Riti and city auditor and clerk Pam Nadalini. The report stated that from 2009-10 there were several payment inconsistencies for the programs Man Up, Yelda and Merit. 

It was Yelda on Tuesday night that received the most scrutiny during the city commission meeting.

A major concern, the audit showed, is that a city employee working for Yelda is alleged to have doubled billed both the city and state for the program's participant timecards. Lori Benton, a city administrative assistant, was responsible for approving all participants’ timecards as well as reviewing reimbursement requests submitted to the state, records show.

Those reports prompted Bartolotta to ask police to start a criminal investigation, he said.

Yelda was formally run by the Newtown Front Porch Council and now by the Newtown Front Porch Neighborhood Revitalization Council. It, like the other two programs, is designed to give youth summer jobs and pay them for it. 

The audit said: "Yelda secured a $25,000 grant from the State Department of Community Affairs (DCA), which the organization used to offset some of the costs of the summer youth program. However, city staff did not require or request information on how the matching funds were utilized and was therefore unaware that Yelda invoiced both the city and the state for some of the same charges."

It added that duplicate payroll Benton billed was nearly $6,000, the audit shows. 

Criminal investigation aside, the audit report stated there were various other concerns, including: 

• Numerous timecard errors
• Program eligibility information not submitted
• Insufficient funds to cover payroll
• Conflicts on interests identified
• Sub recipients were not registered with state

Future of Grants in Jeopardy 

Riti's audit also said there was a lack of internal control, which was disputed by director of community development, Donald Hadsell, and director of neighborhoods and development, Tim Litchet. 

They both said the city, aside from $84, could account for all city money given to the summer youth organizations. What they could not account for, they said, was how the organizations were spending money from other sources. 

While money could be accounted for, Bartolotta stood by the audit report that said there was insufficient financial oversight within the organizations to trust them. "I wouldn’t jump to say those agencies have their act together," he said. 

The back and forth between city staff members drew sharp criticism from Vice Mayor Terry Turner and commissioner Shannon Snyder. 

"The auditor's job is to audit that our money and operations are square away and obviously they are not," Snyder said. "Everybody works for the city commission, you better have every document and everything ready to go.

"[We've] had over 30 days to get this put together," he added. "There is no reason to have this tit for tat tonight, which is ridiculous."

Turner questioned why the audit did not go further and alleged Nadalini ignored the commission's request to audit sub-recipients of the grants. 

Nadalini argued that expanding the audit was outside of the city's jurisdiction. That is why, she said, that it is her department's recommendation that the summer youth programs be taken totally inside the city if they wish to have that much oversight of the programs. 

Litchet and Bartolotta both said, however, that with current staff levels they don't know how that would be possible to manage.

By the end of the lengthy discussion, commission unanimously directed staff to create an entirely new policy for summer youth grant programs and to not give out nine previously approved CRA grants unless the organization could come up with two years of audited financial statements.

"There was badly defined policy and huge mistakes made in the sub recipients," Turner said. "There is not anybody that can say they did a good job with respect to these programs."

"We are sitting here doing a blame game and doing he said, she said," said Mayor Suzanne Atwell. "This is not becoming of the city. It got much too complicated and much too embarrassing. We do not want to be in this position in the next two years."