NJ Probing Decades of Towaco Fire District Spending

State officials have requested from the its payroll records for the last 20 years, apparently in response to a complaint filed by a resident regarding compensation for the fire district's former administrator, according to the district's Board of Commissioners.

Commissioners said during their Nov. 16 meeting the requests apparently are related to a complaint resident Dan Pagano said he filed with the Local Finance Board in the spring.

Commissioners the long-time fire administrator, Harry Schaub Jr.'s, position after the proposed Towaco fire budget for what officials said was the first time in history. Pine Brook and Montville fire districts do not have full-time administrators, officials said.

Schaub, who served as administrator for 20 years and retired in June, made $82,412 working for the fire district in 2010, his wife made $26,057, and they were in the Public Employees Retirement System, according to DataUniverse. Pagano said he is concerned about Schaub's lifetime health benefits and how they might affect Towaco taxpayers.

Board President William Mac Study said the fire board sent numerous documents to Trenton and the fire district's part-time secretary was working overtime in response to the state's requests. He said the district's computer was down and they only were able to provide a quarter of the information the state requested. The district has since purchased a new computer, commissioners said.

"We're not hiding anything. Everything's open," Mac Study said.

At the same meeting, Pagano filed an Open Public Records Act request for the same sort of information the state requested. He said his request was separate, even though the complaint he filed with the state might have prompted the state's similar requests.

"I'm not duplicating work for you guys," he said. Pagano said he filed a complaint in March or April and notified the Board of Fire Commissioners at the time so they knew to take extra care they followed proper procedures.

The current fire board is comprised of mostly new members and those who overlapped with previous administrations said they were not very involved in overseeing the fire district.

The New Jersey Department of Community Affairs said Friday it "can neither confirm nor deny the receipt of an ethics complaint (filed with the Local Finance Board) for reasons of confidentiality. Ethics complaints are only subject to public disclosure 30 days after mailing a notice of dismissal or a notice of violation to the individual named in a complaint and the complainant."

Schaub, a Towaco resident who retired as district fire administrator in June after 20 years and started as a firefighter in the 1970s, said he didn't know the state was requesting payroll records from two decades back. He said the state audits the fire district every year to ensure the budget is in order.