my god they wil have to have massive over rides to cover up there  mis mangement of the town, we should have had a recall before now

Where is the missing Selectman?
Snitch?

I have been reading this site for a very long time. I have not always agreed with the method, but the message is right on the mark. We need change and we need it quickly. I fell for Bruce Savague the first time around and voted for him. I wish I could take back my vote. He is a disgrace. Since I am coming clean I used to pick up a copy of the observer every week. never again.

I vote we recall every single one of them and toss rob slager out on his ear. i have a question to ask. if you walk in a bank and the owner is a complete idiot and tax cheat do you leave your money in the bank? this is what we are doing. we are asking idiots to manage our hard earned taxes. we cant change banks, but we can change owners. get rid of them before they ruin the town.

You're going to prison behind this shit, Bruce. Pack your toothbrush now.

Thanks Ham, once again. I felt like this was a big issue that wasn't being brought up enough. Just another in a long line of screw-ups.

PShooter

They can't blame skyrocketing Legal Fees on "economic woes", try as they might.

PShooter

It's not as simple as that Cas. What it is is the the town is responsible for 75% of the health care cost and the employees are responsible for 25%. I'm not sure when it began, but apparently the employees contribution has amounted to more than the 25%. In effect, the town owes the employees money for the difference. This is where it gets a bit iffy. The admin has been dipping into the fund to supplement other expenditures and now has to repay the money to the fund. Of course, the town is broke and I'm pretty sure the Selectmen will lay this entirely on the ITA and former TA's. They would be correct to do so if they would stay away from day to day business, but we know better. My opinion is that it will be tossed in Saguinet's lap and it will end up costing him his job.

Just a side note: They will find a way to hang part of it on Bob Bliss.:)

So Larry, would it be correct to say that the town has under-contributed their portion?  Did I read your comment right?  How much "under" are they in terms of percentage?  Is a $1,000,000 shortfall a 5% "underfund"?  Is it 50%?  Have any employees been denied health coverage because of this?

Bobo has the story. The selectmen are blaming all the TA"S from Hartman until now. Butt Monkey doesn't think the numbers are correct. The selectman may not be accountants but it their fault it took over a year to appoint a new TA. Maybe if they had found someone who was smart they would have found this problem a lot sooner.

Last edited by marny (2009-10-05 17:08:09)

i agree too many ?'s..

slagers name on the story about this.. he wasnt even in the room when this meeting happened only andrea s...i wonder how he got bruce's commentsbruce wasnt even at the meeting...

Tuesday's Selectmen's meeting should be interesting. Get ready for major spin and it's not my fault.

There's the concern about the selectmen, but how about the chairman of the finance committee?  From The Observer, on July 3 of this year:

Richard Paulsen, chairman of the Finance Committee, is disputing a story in the Standard-Times that suggests the town took a “substantial amount of money” from the Health Trust Fund and may be forced to give it back.
    According to Paulsen, School Committee Member Geoff Swett approached the FinCom during a meeting Tuesday night, questioning a five-year-old town policy that allows surpluses in the Health Trust Fund to roll over each year in order to prevent shortfalls in the future. Paulsen said Swett, a board member of the Citizens for a Better Wareham, wants the town to re-examine that policy and consider giving any yearly surplus back to employees in the plan (employees are currently responsible for paying 25 percent of the fund).
    “At this point we don’t even know if there is even a surplus,” Paulsen said. “This doesn’t have the appearance of being a really significant issue. A question has been asked. Geoff brought it to our attention. Changing policy would be up to the town administrator.”
    When told the local hate bloggers are claiming selectmen stole the money to pay for the audit of town-owner computers, Paulsen burst out laughing.
    “What these people write is beyond me sometimes,” he said. “I don’t know whether to smile or just shake my head. Sometimes I feel like doing both at the same time. The policy to roll over surpluses has been in effect for years.”

Well, we obviously now know there wasn't a surplus.  We also know that Swett seems to have been right about there being something fishy going on with the fund, even though his question doesn't appear to be dead on.  The S-T story (which I can't find at the moment - can anybody help?) also appears to be accurate.  Was the FinCom chair just asleep at the switch?  Who appointed him?  Is this issue related to the fact that the fincom can't get any numbers from the ITA?   Lots and lots of questions here

Okay, I know Mr. Slager et al including our BOS read these blogs. So, let me say my piece. Do they all suffer from CRS? Wasn't it just a couple of years ago that Selectmen Ekstrom, Selectmen Donahue and the entire BOS insisted that the budget came under their jurisdiction? To the point where all but one member of the FinCom resigned? And, doesn't Selectmen Donahue professionally work in the Comptrollers Office for the US Navy? Shouldn't she be an expert on budgets?
So why did they claim then that the budget belonged to them and now claim they play no role in the budget. Also, when the Tobey Trust Fund was overspent, didn't they claim that Selectmen Parola and Selectmen Abbott should have been watching the FUND more closely and known about the overspending? They placed the blame on both of them, as Selectmen, but now they claim they have no connection to the FUND?
One thing for sure, how they fix this will be on their shoulders and will be entirely their responsibility. They can't blow that off or spin it any way.

TO BRUCE, SLAGER, PAULSON AND BRENDA  SCREW YOUR SELFS YOU ARE A BUNCH OF ASS HOLE LIARS.

Flyspeck wrote:

Try this:

http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:Isq … fukmah.m24

THANK YOU..

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I thought during last fall town meeting, when they had to make the emergency cuts to the budget the ITA, BOS and FinCom all discussed using this money to close a budget gap. I recall the ITA saying he changed things regarding employee benefits and there was extra money available.  Now if they (ALL) knew at this point during OPEN TOWN MEETING that this was wrongm, where was our Board of Selectmen to stand up and question it??  Can a copy of the town meeting be located?    They are all to blame, removal of this current town administrator and board of selectmen is a must!  Mr. Hamatron you hit the nail on the head, Resign Immediately
Employee insurance fund fraud  1.9 mil
wrongful employee terminations 100K +++
Legal Account over run             365K +++
Computer audit                     40-60K
Town administrator payout          35k
How much was spent on Maple Springs Road fiasco?
I am also hearing the part time Police Chief is getting
full time pay?  (this should be looked into also) If this is true, I want a full time police chief!

What does this equal?

Services reductions
Our town looking like SHIT! (sorry for the vulgarity but its true)
No Lifeguards
Butchered Library
No Recreation
Trust me, senior services will be affected
Schools suffer

And the list goes on Please feel free to add.


Thank you

When this hits the papers tomorrow, maybe it will aggravate people enough to show up at tomorrows selectman’s meeting. I wonder if the selectman will announce their selection of a new TA at tomorrows meeting.  I’m sure they would like to fire the ITA but they need him for Town Meeting.  It would be difficult for a new TA to get up to speed before the Town Meeting.

Bobo you predictable rump swabbing Brucey lackey.  You've ripped the BOS critics for far less.  But $1.9 million dollars is lost under this board's watch, and you're going to help them sweep it under the rug?  What a lackey.  What an incredible lacky.

Bobo the Sell-out.

Okay, let me use my accounting training:)
Every year, the employees are informed of how much will be required from each check to cover their health care expense. That number is based on a calculation. The actual cost of health care for the fiscal year, any increase expected, and THEN they should have calculated the employee portion for the previous year. From the announcement, they left out an important part of the equation. So, what they are saying is they have passed on increases each year to the employee without considering their adjustment from prior years. Does this make sense? The employees have a major beef with the people running this town (administration and elected). Who thought it was okay to miss that portion of the calculation? Who thought it was a great idea to call what was left in the trust account a surplus? Wow, not only does the town now owe the trust account the money they spent, they also owe employees their fair share of the suplus (which is probably going to be adjusted from the employee deduction for health care). This is a big mess!
My next issue is why wasn't this addressed before? I have a packet from the meeting and I will read through it.
In my opinion, you cannot hold the Selectmen blameless. Even though they are not supposed to participate in day to day activities, they are the ones who hired McAuliffe and thought it was a bright move to keep Saguinet. They also fired Bliss and allowed this town to run off consulting until they hired an accountant with no degree. These are executive decsions that they have made, so let's be clear. Their hands are not clean. They can whine all they want about "not my problem" but that is the problem!

This could be a set up to show how bad it is to have a TA, but that doesn't make sense. A good TA should have spotted this! What is the FINCOM's responsibility in this? I don't think the Selectmen should be able to walk away from this and blame it on everyone else.

They're going to pin this all on Hartman?  Pathetic and ridiculous, which by the way, are two good words to describe Bobo the Hobo.  They kicked that guy out how long ago, 4 years ago?  How long have they been in charge?  This is exactly why the selectmen should FOLLOW THE CHARTER and NOT GET INVOLVED WITH THE DAY TO DAY OPERATIONS OF THE TOWN!

We need, I repeat, NEED an experienced town administrator professional to be overseeing the day to day operations of the town.  We need someone watching out for this stuff.  We have not had a professional town manager in this town in 4 years.  FOUR YEARS.  They keep throwing town administrators under the bus because they don't pucker up and kiss Sweet Brucey's ass hard enough. 

If we had a town administrator in there for any length of time in all these years, then this would have been caught.  Instead, we have the selectmen breaking the charter and taking on the administrator's role. 

Sanguinett has been nothing but a glorified office manager, keeping the photocopier warm and the rubber stamp pad inked up, ready to act on the BOS' every command.  This would not have happened if they had put a professional administrator in there and allowed them to do their jobs.  This would not have happened if they had followed the charter.

They should have to pay this money back to the town personally.  Bobo, how did this happen on your watch?  I thought you were an ace reporter.  Oh right, you don't care, you don't pay any taxes in Wareham so this doesn't affect you.

THE PRICE TAG OF BOS INCOMPETENCE - $1.9 million

THROW THEM OUT BEFORE THEY BANKRUPT THE TOWN!!!

Seriously people, be honest.  Would you hire a so-called "financial planner" who owes $181,000 in back taxes and had his car repossessed to run your business?  No?  Then why the hell do you let him hold the highest elected office (BOS Chair) in town?

The current ita buttmonkey should resign Now or be fired. They hired the last two administrators, they picked all of the financial comm members, the current bos, fired the town acct, let positions go unfilled for years, hire an acct with no degree. They bos are surely to blame.

Sauvageau hopes something positive will stem from this situation.
    “Incompetence has a cost, a huge cost,” he said. “So does laziness. This is what we’ve been preaching for a long time now. If people aren’t doing their jobs they need to be replaced.”

I agree. Unfortunately, look at the record of "replacing" people. Who does that fall under? I could sit here all night and write about incompetence and the Selectmen, but it would be preaching to choir. It does have a huge cost, and the citizens of Wareham will pay for it. The problem isn't preaching, it's performing. Show me where you have brought accountability to the town of Wareham? Show me your great fiscal responsibility. Show me the professional behavior that the citizens so richly deserve. You preach but you don't back it up with results.

The best part is you are right. If people aren't doing their jobs, they need to be replaced. Remember, you said that Bruce!

Notice how slager quotes Brenda saying that the town would have split the cost of the audit but urbons article said the ita buttmonkey refused to split the cost of the audit. Oh my head who to believe?

Rip Dinkle wrote:

Rip Dinkle here....(que the music Ham)...

Tell me Mr. Chairman, how do you justify saying "We’re not accountants. We don’t handle the money. We have to trust our administration on things like this. We have to trust our town administration and we have to trust our accountants. This is something that was put into place by Michael Hartman. Hartman’s contact wasn’t renewed. A resolution was drafted to terminate the contract of his replacement, John McAuliffe. The former town accountant is the former town accountant. This is what we’ve been saying all along. People need to do their jobs." !

Let's remember the town meeting where the bos tried to shove THEIR budget down our throats instead of the modified budget that had been worked on by the treasurer and the Fin Com. TM had to be postponed a week. The bos budget cut the library by a huge amount and put money back into the sewer account. The bos were furious when the Fin Com chair immediately made a motion to use their budget. The Fin Com, all but one person, QUIT at that town meeting it got so bad.

So when this bos claim they have nothing to do with budgetary matters they lie. They claimed their budget was the more responsible budget. That would have to mean they had looked at it with more than a glance. They didn't "trust" their administration then. They fired McAuliffe over the sewer admin fee, don't think that wasn't the main reason--a budget issue.

They didn't appoint a fin com for a while and when they did it was their lackeys. The chair of the fin com they appointed quit not long after because he probably couldn't stand it. The rest of the fin com can't do any work because they don't get any data from ITA, probably on orders of the bos. The bos have their finger in the money pie in town and don't think they don't. They should at least take partial responsibility for this fiasco.

Their covert meeting the other day was to plan PR strategy. And what did they come up with? We are thankful that this is happening? Pure bulls**t. Hartman saved the town millions of dollars according to Urbon. The system was set up properly by Hartman if we saved so much. So, where did it go wrong? Who moved funds around? Who knew about it?

Let's get to the bottom of this. Let's demand this bos resign. We can't take another humiliation. TAKE BACK WAREHAM.

IHATESLAGER wrote:

Notice how slager quotes Brenda saying that the town would have split the cost of the audit but urbons article said the ita buttmonkey refused to split the cost of the audit. Oh my head who to believe?

in the packet handed out at the meeting yesterday afternoon there is a letter asking the ita to split the cost of the audit $2900 he refused.. he was in the meeting and never denied the fact read outloud.. so i would believe he REFUSED..,

ACCORDING TO THE RAG EDITORTHE PRESENT SELECTMAN HAVE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS FIASCO, I GUESS HE THINS THE POPE SHOULD CANNONIZE BRENDA AND BRUCIE AS SAINTS, SLAGER IS FULL OF SHIT , HARTMAN ,BLISS WRE HOUNDED BY THIS CROWD , HE SET UP A GOOD PLAN THAT SAVED THE TOWN OF WAREHAM CLOSE TO 8 MILLION DOLLARS  , ITS THE PRESENT BOARD OF SELECTMAN WHERE THIS FIASCO CAME OUT, SLAGER LIKES TO BLAME ANY BODY BUT BRUCE AND BRENDA , HE MIGHT AS WELL AS KISS THERE BUTTS ON TV , HE IS SO PATHETIC,I KNOW THE TOWN OF WAREHAM HAD DEPT HEADS IN ALL THERE DEPTS AND ALL DEPTS WERE RUNNING ON GOOD BUDGETS , SLAGER STOP THE SPINNING AND LIEING YOU CAND MAKE A SILK PURSE OUT OF A SOWS EAR , AMD YOU AND YOUR SELECTMAN BUDDIES CAN GO TO HELL AS YOU ALL ARE PIECES OF SHIT, YOU ALL NEED TO GET SOME BACK BONE. THINKS WERE A   LOT BETTER  WHEN HARTMAN AND THE  PREVIOUS  BOARD OF SELECTMAN  RAN THE TOWN , THE TOWN IS PURE HELL NOW SINCE  THESE CLOWNS  RUN THINGS,    AND SLAGER WHAT IS THE PAY OF THE PART TIME POLICE CHIEF.

Clowns are not just in Ringling Brothers Circus...

acasualobserver wrote:

So Larry, would it be correct to say that the town has under-contributed their portion?  Did I read your comment right?  How much "under" are they in terms of percentage?  Is a $1,000,000 shortfall a 5% "underfund"?  Is it 50%?  Have any employees been denied health coverage because of this?

Cas, I've will send an email this morning..but the answer is yes, the town has under-contributed their portion. You will have the report today on the estimated shortage that should have pushed to the employees portion or trust. To make a long story short, They town kept 100% of any surplus when they should have pushed the employee portion 25% back to the employees. The big question now is how did the town allocate the surplus? In other terms, what did they do with that surplus? This is a very big animal.

Before i go any further, I also want to address Article 1 for Town Meeting:

ARTICLE 1
To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate or appropriate and transfer from
available funds a sum of money to amend or supplement the Fiscal Year 2010 budget,
to defray the costs of a projected deficit or to do or act in any manner relative thereto.
Inserted by the Board of Selectmen at the request of the Interim Town Administrator.

This brings into the discussion another interesting avenue. If they do not return the employee portion of the surplus to the employee, this article appears to give power to the ITA to utilize that surplus to transfer money to balance any deficit (such as legal fees????) I'm leaning towards NAY on this

Predictably, Bobo's column is one big Brucey butt smooch fest.  He's twisting it around, saying we can't blame the selectmen because we say they should be out of day to day operations and the $1.9 million shortfall occurred in the area of day to day operations.

Yeah, precisely our point, THIS IS WHY SELECTMEN SHOULD STAY OUT OF DAY TO DAY OPERATIONS!  If we had a town administrator for more than 5 minutes during the past 4 years, something like this would have been caught.  Hartman put this together in his last year and initially, the word is it did save the town alot of money.  But then they canned him and the selectmen then created a revolving door where they tried a series of town administrators only to give them the heave-ho because they didn't kiss Sweet Brucey's ass hard enough.

McAulliffe didn't catch it.  He was the BOS' choice.  In his defense, maybe he'd have caught it if he'd been allowed to stay in his job for awhile. 

Sanguinett has been in a long time though, and he was completely under this board's control.  Make no mistake, Sanguinett has been little more than a glorified secretary.  He keeps the photocopier and the printer stocked with paper and ink and he waits by the phone awaiting Sweet Brucey's commands. 

The selectmen took over day to day operations, in violation of the town charter, and this was the result.  And why, with a "financial planner" that owes $181,000 in back taxes and had his car repossessed, why is that not surprising?  You wouldn't hire him to run your lemonade stand, why vote for him for selectman?

Throw these clowns out of office.  Put in a board that is going to hire an intelligent, competent town administrator that is going to roll up his sleeves and be allowed to stick around and tackle Wareham's problems for the long term.

It's time to stop the revolving door in the town administrator's office.  It's time for the selectmen to stop throwing people out because they don't pay enough homage to Sweet Brucey.

Throw these clowns out and put in people who are going to lead before this town goes into bankruptcy.

And for Christ's sakes, Wareham, stop taking advice on who to pick for your leaders from a bagel biting officeless dumbass from Halifax.  This is where it has got you so far.

Not,
Drop me your email address in a private message. I have something you might just like to see :)

BREAKING NEWS: Methinks Bobo doth protest too much!

Claims that the Board of Selectmen stole $1.9 million from the town instead of giving the surplus from the health care trust fund back to town employees – Finance Committee Chairman Dick Paulsen noted that it isn’t theoretically possible for any member of the Board of Selectmen to personally take money from the fund. Any surplus in the health care fund was rolled back into the town budget. Selectmen do not have any control of the town budget nor can they issue checks to themselves (selectmen are unpaid). Only the accounting department can issue checks. There is no mechanism in which selectmen could have transferred money from the town into their own bank accountants. That can only be done through the accounting department, which was recently audited at the town’s request. There was no evidence, or even the suggestion, that funds were illegally transferred to selectmen.

Someone take a look at the thread above to double-check, but I don't think any of us accused the selectmen of stealing the $1.9 million for themselves.  I did suggest that it was possible that they could have been using the money to pay for computer audits, witch hunts, legal bills, etc all part of their ongoing carrying out of their impossible to satisfy personal vendettas on the taxpayer's dime.

"There is no mechanism in which selectmen could have transferred money from the town into their own bank ACCOUNTS" is what you meant to say, Bobo.  Not accountants.  Bobo, your spell checker doesn't catch everything.  It won't catch it if you used the wrong word if the word is spelled correctly.  We really do need to start billing you for proofreading services.

But Bobo, what the hell?  Why are you launching into defending the selectmen from claims they took the money for themselves when no such claims have been made?  Do you know something we don't?  What do you know, Bobo?  Come on, spill it.  Do the BOS have a little extra bling bling we don't know about?  It's awfully odd that you'd go down that path when we didn't, Bobo.  Awfully suspicious.

Methinks Bobo doth protest too much.

Last edited by Hamatron5000 (2009-10-06 11:45:02)