BUFFALO, N.Y. — Buffalo Common Council members heard testimony from the City Auditor Tuesday about a recent administrative leave controversy involving a Buffalo fire department clerk, who was paid not to work for seven years.
Our partners at Investigative Post first broke the story two weeks ago. They discovered that back in February 2016, the clerk was accused of tampering with the payroll in order to pad her checks, and was placed on leave but never received a disciplinary hearing so she continued to be paid.
Civil Service Committee Chair Mitch Nowakowski has since spearheaded an effort to hold whoever is responsible for the oversight accountable and last week Nowakowski called on the city comptroller to audit all city employees who are currently on paid administrative leave.
On Tuesday, City of Buffalo Auditor Kevin Kaufman informed committee members that seven city employees are currently on leave, and in total, 12 have been over the fiscal year.
"What we've done so far is just to look to see if there is any fire," said Kaufman.
Four employees have returned to work and one resigned he added.
The information presented Tuesday was part of an initial fact-finding mission commenced by city comptroller Barbara Miller-Williams who told her office to investigate after learning about the report.
Kaufman added that the numbers are on par with previous years and did not indicate any departmental irregularities. Typically there are 2 to 3 people per thousand employees on paid administration leave he said.
"Is there a timeline that you can project to the public," Nowakowski asked, regarding when the comptroller's investigation may finish.
"Right now we are still gathering information and we need help from other departments to get this information so it's very difficult to put a timeline on something when you don't know if other departments will be able to cooperate with you," Kaufman said.
The city auditor also explained that fact-finding investigations typically precede full audits, which can take many months to complete and can be costly.
Niagara District Council Member David Rivera said he still thinks that an audit should be "a no-brainer," as he wants to make sure the city can identify where the system broke down over 7 years ago.
Kaufman said that the comptroller's office has requested additional information from the administration as part of their investigation.
"It's good to hear that the comptroller's office is responding and that's exactly what we all want to see we all want to make sure this isn't happening in other instances across the board," said Lovejoy Council Member Bryan Bollman.
After the meeting, Nowakowki told 2 On Your Side that while he was disappointed that the comptroller did not attend Tuesday's committee meeting in person, he plans to make sure that whatever information her office requests is in fact delivered.