DPW deputy commish alleged to have used county building for his own vehicles
ALBANY COUNTY — The deputy commissioner of the Albany County Department of Public Works, Scott Duncan, is alleged to have stored his own vehicles and had them repaired at the department’s building in Voorheesville this spring.
A March 12 memorandum received from an Enterprise Freedom of Information Law request stated that Duncan had “utilized a storage area at the Department of Public Works,” violating a county policy since county property “may not be used for personal use.”
Duncan lost a week of vacation accruals for the incident, according to the memo, which does not name any vehicles but states only, “you utilized a storage area.”
Duncan, who lives in Berne and serves as the East Berne fire chief, declined to comment, deferring to county spokeswoman Mary Rozak. She also declined to comment on what she said was a personnel matter, and said that any relevant information would be found in the Freedom of Information Law request that The Enterprise had made.
Jacques Garraghan, a former employee of Duncan, said that the deputy commissioner had been having department mechanics fix his own trailers and all-terrain vehicles at the Voorheesville facility for some time before Duncan was disciplined in March.
“As a foreman I couldn’t get my [county] trucks fixed half the time,” he said.
Garraghan said that other workers followed the rules and wouldn’t even change the oil in their personal vehicles while at work.
He also noted that Duncan’s breech took place in the period after the former commissioner, Darrell Duncan, had left, and before the new commissioner, Lisa Ramundo, had filled the post.
He said that Scott Duncan stored the vehicles in a room used for painting trucks when an inspection of the department that ultimately led to his write-up took place.
Garraghan, 50, who lives in Westerlo, resigned from his job at the Albany County Department of Public Works this summer after serving as a road foreman and working for the county for a decade.
He resigned, Garraghan said, because the shifts he was assigned no longer gave him the time off he needed look after his 6-year-old grandson, who has cerebral palsy. A third shift for foremen was removed and two shifts that either ended in the middle of the night or began early in the morning were created instead, he said.
