Town golf-course workers overpaid $16K

GUILDERLAND — Two town golf-course employees resigned and their supervisor was demoted, in the wake of a state comptroller’s audit of town of Guilderland employee compensation and benefits. The comptroller’s report, issued this month, covered the period from Jan. 1, 2014 to Jan. 31, 2015.

The audit found no other substantial discrepancies.

According to the report, the two employees — who Supervisor Peter Barber named as Brad Towle and Shawn Kanawada — were overpaid a combined total of approximately $16,000 over three years.

The employees were overpaid, the report says, for time not worked but included within hours submitted and for leave taken but not charged.

One employee left town employment before the audit, and the other left during it, the report says.

The report also specifies that, upon the termination of the employee who left during the audit, he was denied payment of his unused vacation time, totaling $4,700.

This brought the amount overpaid down to approximately $5,700 per employee, the report says.

The discrepancies occurred, the report says, because the employees’ supervisor certified the hours submitted by the employees without checking time cards or ensuring that leave time was used when employees were absent.

As a result of the finding, Parks and Recreation Maintenance Supervisor Colin Gallup was demoted to the position of Town Park Foreman, said Barber.

Gallup’s demotion was accompanied by a reduction in salary, from approximately $82,000 to $73,000, Barber said.

Gallup’s former duties were taken over by two employees, Barber said, with the majority taken over by Gregory Wier, superintendent of the Transfer Station, and others being handled by Linda Cure of the Parks and Recreation Department.

All of these disciplinary steps occurred before he took office in December, Barber said. The measures were taken in June 2015 by the former town supervisor, Kenneth Runion.

Barber said his understanding is that Gallup was “overwhelmed with other things going on” and had placed a lot of trust in the two employees, both of whom had worked for the golf course for many years. The payroll system in place at the course was the same one that had been used there since before the town took ownership in 2002.

Gallup did not return a phone call. Towle said that he was “not ready to talk about that just yet.” Kanawada could not be reached for comment.

Asked if the town will try to recoup the approximately $11,400, Barber said that a decision was made mid-year in 2015 not to pursue it. He added that the town attorney was currently looking at the matter again, to see if it could be successful. “The state comptroller was not looking for us to do it,” Barber added.

The only other problem the comptroller’s report noted was that the personnel administrator’s duties were not sufficiently segregated, allowing for the possibility of errors or irregularities; the report asked the town to further segregate the duties over payroll process, or, if that is not practical, to have a periodic outside review of payroll operations and activities.

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