To the Editor:

At the Sept. 6 Westerlo Town Board meeting, the town board, representing five of the seven members of the Building Committee, voted 4 to 1 to approve a bond for $887,000 to renovate the town hall,without any details or itemization.

Add to this the $80,000 already approved for basement asbestos abatement and the investment comes to $967,000, exceeding last year's estimate of $893,250. Interest on such a loan adds several hundred thousand dollars more. Is that building worth well over a million dollars?

A more responsible approach would have been to present the public with several options for review and comment, then develop a plan based on taxpayer feedback. Instead, the public has once again been shut out and the board has pre-approved spending for Delaware Engineering’s big-money project. A referendum is planned for the November ballot and, just like last year, unless it is defeated by the voters the town can levy a 20-year tax.

One of the town board members said she didn't receive notice of the $887,000 cost until the afternoon of the meeting. She was the only one to vote against it. I believe she will have lots of company come November when the project goes to public vote.

After the meeting Councilman William Bichteman told the Altamont Enterprise reporter that “an estimate was not completed until a few days before the Tuesday meeting and then had to be corrected. He confirmed that members of the Building Committee finally received the estimate Tuesday, the day of the meeting.” Were the other members consulted about the original cost and “corrections” or were they bypassed?

In spite of numerous comments from the public, including postponing a decision until the full Building Committee could meet and discuss the only hours-old cost information, Mr. Bichteman called for the vote. I find it odd that he, who vigorously pursued every detail of the Volunteer Fire Department's budget last year, was willing to accept Delaware Engineering’s estimate, even though he claimed not to know the breakdown, for instance, of main-floor asbestos abatement. Instead, we repeatedly heard the cost “doesn't matter.”

How does the estimated average tax per parcel of approximately $33 per year for 20 years, fit in with long-term planning and future tax levies? It doesn't. There is no long-term planning. No economic development plan. No capital fund. This is just the beginning.

According to the last Building Committee meeting, its marketing campaign will not include future costs related to the highway garage, approved last year at $1,810,000 until it was voted down. Mr. Bichteman said he expected changes in personnel to reduce that cost. How so? How are highway garage requirements dependent on a particular set of town employees?

Nor will public information include the cost of town hall basement asbestos abatement (already approved), deferred maintenance (what’s the life expectancy of the town hall roof?), town highway department labor to do the driveway and parking lot (is this in their contracted scope of work?), or costs related to essential services provided by the fire department, etc. Is this full and honest disclosure supporting accountability in government?

When asked whether grants were available, Mr. Bichteman said Delaware Engineering would have let them know if there were. Was that part of their contract? Even it is was, how invested would they be in developing alternate sources of funding for the town?

Maybe the town board is going to wait until the highway garage falls down and then call it an emergency and get a new building that way.

Town buildings continue to be neglected. Just take a look at the brick crumbling in the lower walls of the town hall and the unpainted eaves above, not to mention the steps to the meeting room. Even the patch in that room, replacing wood flooring that was good when the building was purchased until ice-dam leaks ruined it, may be failing: There’s a new cracking sound when people walk on it. There has been no evidence that would assure taxpayers that future maintenance would be any better.

Financial management has been an issue for town government and public accountability is lacking. Monthly financial information is not printed or presented in detail, as it is in other towns. Rensselaerville, for example, publishes financial reports with its minutes. I used the state’s Freedom of Information Law to get a copy of Westerlo's supervisor's report, which cost me $7 for just one month.

In early meetings about establishing the village water district, residents were assured that taxpayers outside the water district would not have to pay for its costs. Instead, according to a very limited state audit of selected financial activities,“The Board and Town officials did not take appropriate action to align estimated [water district] revenues in the adopted budgets with actual rate schedules. This resulted in an accumulated operating deficit. Furthermore, the water district fund owed the general fund a cumulative balance of $66,388 as of December 31, 2013.”

The broken assurance that water-district costs would not impact town taxpayers was not made public until the audit was published.

Audits can help towns improve financial management. This one recommended, among other things, that the town “Develop a comprehensive plan to ensure that all outstanding interfund advances are repaid.”

Mr. Bichteman, in establishing the Water Board and tackling its inherited problems, has done a great deal to improve water-district processes. However, when asked about the debt to the town’s general fund, he said it might take 60 years to repay it. In my opinion, that's a cynical answer to a serious question. Where is the commitment to financial accountability?

What we do have is approval to spend $887,000 with no disclosed details, but the cost “doesn't matter.”

Dianne Sefcik

Westerlo