The Great Clarkstown Giveaway

"If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind" - Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

News Flash ....
According to Clarkstown Commissioner of Finance, Ed Duer, the Town of Clarkstown has more than $5.5 million in surplus sloshing around in the nine special and general funds that comprise the town budget.

The Clarkstown Supervisor and the Clarkstown Town Board have reduced that surplus by half a million dollars by signing a special agreement which pays out half a million dollars in salary and benefits to eight supervisory personnel of the Town of Clarkstown.

The agreement - inked by the Town Board two weeks ago - pays out all accumulated sick leave and accumulated vacation time to the eight personnel, and allows them to take unlimited sick leave, and a minimum of three weeks vacation time in the future.

In addition, the eight supervisory personnel no longer have to work 35 hour work weeks, but must work "reasonable" hours, meaning they no longer have to be in Town Hall when it opens, or in Town Hall when it closes.

Under the agreement, the Superintendent of Parks & Recreation receives cash totaling $75,000.  The Director of Purchasing, receives cash totaling $72,895. Conservative Party heavy-weight and patronage appointee Ed Lettre as Clerk of the Works receives $46,000 in cash, while the Conservative Party heavy-weight and Personnel Administrator of Clarkstown receives cash of $57,443 for her accumulated vacation and sick time. The Assessor - long a power in the Conservative Party - receives a whopping $88,191 while Building Inspector Peter Beary, receives $50,000.

The half a million dollars of payments comes with a passage of a memorandum of agreement executed between Lettre (representing the Clarkstown special unit of the CSEA) and the Town of Clarkstown dated March 8th and approved by the Town Board on April 2nd. 

Time Clock?  What Time Clock?
While these eight department heads normally had to work a 35 hour work week, the new contract provides that "the basic work week for department heads shall be any hours necessary whenever and to the extent required, to perform the functions required to maintain the proper and efficient operation of the department. The hours required of department heads to efficiently maintain an acceptable level of service to the public shall be expected without overtime compensation."

What this means, however, is that since there are no minimum hours in the contract, the department heads can come and go as they please, do whatever they want, and not be charged with any dereliction of duty for not working a 35 hour week.

The agreement also provides that "should a department head seek to establish a normal work day which is substantially out of the ordinary, he or she can do so through a formal resolution of the Town Board".

The new contract also provides "where a department head will not be on duty during the normal business hours of the town, he or she shall be available and accessible to the supervisor," which led one wag to say: "By cell phone from the golf course if necessary".

The contract also provides that the department heads have the "right" to "a reasonable amount of vacation time with pay," which can only be taken with advance notice to the Supervisor.

Unlimited Sick Leave For Everybody
The contract was also amended to say that "Sick leave with pay is a privilege rather than the right of a department head. Department heads shall be eligible for unlimited sick leave to provide income protection in those instances where the department head is unable to perform the duties of his or her position in the event of illness or other physical disability." The illness can be verified by the supervisor, but need not be verified.

A person may be terminated after one year of unlimited sick leave with pay. In addition the department heads must keep a record of the days that they were on duty as well as the days they were absent, which records "shall be made available to the supervisor or Town Board upon request."

Unlimited Health Insurance
At least seven of the eight department heads will also now get unlimited health insurance for the rest of their lives for themselves and their family all paid for by the taxpayers.

In addition, every department head got a $2,000 raise, together with a 4% increase, except for Conservative heavy weight Ed Lettre, who got a $3,000 raise. 

All the personnel administrators also get longevity increases of anywhere from $1,500 to $2,000 which are cumulative. Total cost to town taxpayers of the package is in excess of three quarters of a million dollars, including the payout of vacation pay and sick leave.

Previously, members of the unit could take their sick leave and their accumulated vacation time when they retired.  Now they have received the money in a lump sum, replacing it with unlimited sick leave and no responsibilities whatsoever to work a 35 hour work week. 

This special agreement makes Clarkstown administrators the highest paid administrators in Rockland County and sets a precedent to which police and the CSEA will certainly refer when their contracts come up for renewal. 
End of News Flash ....

The above agreement was approved by the Town Board by a vote of 4-1. Councilwoman Shirley Lasker seconded the motion and voted for the agreement. The only 'No' vote was by Councilwoman Anne Marie Smith. 

This can't be right you might say!  Anne Marie Smith?  Who is Anne Marie Smith? She is not even a member of the the Clarkstown Town Board!  

Councilwoman Anne Marie Smith was a member of the Clarkstown Town Board when the above news item appeared in the Rockland County Courier of May 02, 2002. The article was titled 'The Great Clarkstown Giveaway' and was written by Peter W. Sluys - Editor-in-Chief.  Charles Holbrook was the Supervisor; Charles Connington was the Superintendent of Parks & Recreation; Larry Kohler was Director of Purchasing; and the Personnel Administrator was Mary Loeffler. The only person from 2002 still on the Town Board today is Councilwoman Shirley Lasker. The sole 'No' vote from Councilwoman Smith caused her to lose the support of the Town's puppet masters and she was defeated in a subsequent election. 

Smith spoke at length about why she was opposed to the resolution. She questioned why a current contract that was reopened only for the purpose of determining policy for recording time had resulted in 20 new provisions that benefited only the 8 individuals and increased the expense to the Town. She felt that the department heads should be made accountable for recording their absences and providing this information to the Supervisor and the Town Board on a monthly basis. She was opposed to early payout of accrued time, especially at a 100% rate, which would result in the Town paying out approximately $500,000. She also objected to the fact that the new provisions would also provide an additional salary increase on top of an increase approved the previous June, reinstate a previously eliminated 19-year longevity payment and increase the 15-year longevity payment.

Where Are They Now?

Ed Duer ....
Ed Duer continues to peer over the Town's finances while peering out over the Town Board meetings for a compensation of $180,480 in 2014.  One wonders if he understands that the town is now 'Not Yet Bankrupt, Just Insolvent'? 

Rockland County is now the fourth highest taxed county in the whole of the United States which is driving people to abandon their homes because of the property taxes and seek refuge elsewhere. Clarkstown is in the top ten Towns with a population of over 50,000 that has more people moving out than are moving in. That is a situation that spells disaster for homeowners and their property values.

When the Palisades Mall Tax Settlement was announced Clarkstown borrowed the money to make its payment. Why? Because the town of Clarkstown is insolvent and would lose its cherished AAA bond rating if it depleted its reserves any further. 

Mr. Duer has acquiesced in the Town never making a full pension contribution since Mr. Gromack took office.  Instead he has permitted the Town to defer payments over a period of years (normally 10 years) plus interest.  In 2012 that amounted to about $5 Million. The Town calls it 'amortizing'. Others call it spending on the Town's credit card and not telling anyone.  By the close of 2013 the town will have 'amortized' up to $15 - $20 Millions of debt just for unfunded pension contributions alone.  For 2012 the town used $3.2 million from reserves to pay for salary increases rather than negotiating with employees.  For 2013 that amount rose to about $4.6 million.

Mr. Duer chose not to include the full costs of charges for retirement benefits other than pension contributions mainly lifetime health care costs in the budget thus hiding the true cost from taxpayers. All of this shows up in the Financial Reports which shows the decline in the town's net assets from 2008 through 2012 the last year that Clarkstown was solvent. 

Shirley Lasker ....
Shirley Lasker continues on the town board and has morphed from the former darling of the citizen masses to the present puppet of the ruling classes. She pulls in more compensation in 2014 than her one other Democratic colleague and her two Republican colleagues.  As a councilwoman Lasker is paid $43,510. In addition Lasker has the title of 'Deputy Supervisor' and for that onerous responsibility she is paid an additional $11,142 for a total of $54,652. The next highest is Democrat Stephanie Hausner at $42,656. Republicans Borelli and Hoehmann are both at $41,000.

Ed Lettre ....
Ed Lettre continues as the Conservative Party's political heavy-weight in the Town of Clarkstown where he is presently being paid $184,185; $174,699 in his primary position, $5,814 as member of the Architectural and Landscape Board, and $3,672 as Chairman. His son, Daniel, held a job in Clarkstown until he was charged in connection to the burglary of an unoccupied home in West Nyack. He was being paid about $60,000 at the time working on a crew that cleaned up cul-de-sacs and other problem areas throughout the town. 

Lettre's power in the Town appears to be so dominant that when he wishes to hold a meeting to retain himself in control of the minority Conservative party, the whole of the Town Board and their associated support staff feel compelled to enter into his House of Horrors. Lasker not being available for the last 'House of Horrors' meeting nevertheless 'phoned home' to listen in because she "appreciates Lettre's support".  The implications of the 'House of Horrors' are that Lasker's position might properly be characterized as the 'Deputy deputy Supervisor' since Gromack is actually only the 'Deputy Supervisor' with Ed Lettre serving as the true, yet un-elected 'Supervisor' of the Town of Clarkstown.

Mary Loeffler ....
Mary Loeffler was an employee for Clarkstown earning $63,656 more than the average earnings for all of Clarkstown's "General Employee' employees. While Chair of the Rockland Conservative Party, providing that election line to Supervisor Gromack, she retired as Clarkstown’s personnel director, earning $134,200 but remained 'working' part time for the town for $50 an hour for about six months after her retirement. She was strangely out of work for a considerable time in late 2009 through 2010 but was still compensated by the Town even though not at work. A town Board Resolution from March 2010 confirmed that the town Board granted her additional "sick time" after the Clarkstown Taxpayers raised questions about the amount of time she was spending in Florida.

Loeffler is still active in the Conservative Party with Ed Lettre and participated in arranging a Conservative Party meeting to re-elect Lettre as head of the Conservative party by holding the meeting on Yom Kippur when Lettre's Jewish opponent and his supporters would not be in attendance. According to the Rockland County Times Nick Longo, the former Chairman of the party, said the move by Loeffler and Lettre, was unconscionable and "to be so blatantly anti-Semitic is frightful". 

At a press conference Rabbi Justin Schwartz blamed Clarkstown Supervisor Alex Gromack, a close ally of both Loeffler and Lettre, who had asked Town Board members to support Lettre and Loeffler by helping them recruit committee members for the Conservative Party. Chairwoman Loeffler opined to the Rockland County Times "at the time we picked it, we thought Yom Kippur was the day before" proving that while ignorance may be temporary Loeffler's stupidity may be permanent. Lettre tried to clear matters up by saying he "had checked with Jewish 'friends' who told him the holy day ended at sunset Wednesday and the convention started at 7:30 p.m. “I know the Jewish faith,” Lettre said. “I love Jewish people".    

Lettre's reanointing in the Clarkstown Town Hall on the evening of Yom Kippur was followed by a 'celebration' at the La Terrazza restaurant attended by Supervisor Gromack and his patronage appointee, Bronx GOP Chairman, Jay Savino, who was subsequently arrested by the FBI as part of the 'Corridor of Corruption' scandal and then fired by the Town Board.

Police Contracts!
Sluys predicted that the special agreement would set a precedent to which police and the CSEA would certainly refer when their contracts come up for renewal.  How right he was! As Gordon Gekko was to remark in the movie 'Wall Street' - "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good" became the mantra in contract negotiations.  

There were 51 police officers whose incomes in 2012 were over $200,000 many because of overtime. These 51 officers constitute nearly one third of the Clarkstown police force. Incredibly, 42 Police officers, that is 25% of the Clarkstown police department took home more in 2012 than Raymond Kelly, the Police Commissioner of New York City who earns $205,180. 

In ‘Two Jokes: One Humorous, One Laughable’ it was observed that in 2008, the then Chief of Clarkstown Police, Peter Noonan, 'earned' $332,530. He was not the highest paid police officer; one of his two captains earned $335,676 and another captain earned $311,369.  The 50 highest-earning Clarkstown employees were all members of the Police Department. 

Supervisor Gromack called the police salaries "obscene" but also said that the department was "proficient", and was "covering the entire Town on its own and so is doing the job of two or more departments".  He blamed the high police salaries on previous administrations, which he said allowed salaries and benefits to balloon with every contract negotiation.  “I inherited these obscene salaries, and I’ve been attempting to turn them around and bring some reality and sanity to the salary structure of our police,” Mr. Gromack said. 

Mr Gromack has since gone through two cycles of negotiations with the PBA and what has he accomplished? The Clarkstown police were awarded 3.4% raises by a State arbitration panel retroactive for 2009 and 2010 even as it conceded that the police officers were among the highest paid in the nation. How well did Supervisor Gromack fare in his second round of negotiations for the five year period January 1, 2013 through December 31, 2017?  The Clarkstown Town Board approved a five-year agreement with the Rockland County Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association giving 2.5 percent increases each year. The Clarkstown Police will receive an additional 13% raise over the five years that the contract is in force and the Town saved, according to Supervisor Gromack, $25,000 by not having to go to arbitration!    

At a Town Board meeting in late 2012 I asked about the morality of giving pay raises that were more than Clarkstown's senior citizens would receive in social security increases saying: The Board gave a 2.5% increase to the police every year for the next five years.  We have the highest paid police force in the State if not in the United States and this is the fourth highest taxed county in the whole of the United States. Four police officers alone take home $1 million in salaries annually according to the Journal News. Social Security will go up 1.7% in 2013.  How do you justify a 6.2% tax increase and a 2.5% salary increase for the police with our senior citizens getting 1.7%?  The Board's response was basically that things were out of their control.

When Supervisor Gromack was appointed to office by the ruling Lettre 'puppet master' he commented that the police compensation was "obscene".  But nothing was changed even after the New York Times published a major story entitled 'Crime May Not Pay, but in this Town (Clarkstown), Fighting It Sure Does'.

History About To Repeat?
Back in 2002 the editor of the Courier described Ed Lettre as a "Conservative Party heavy-weight and patronage appointee". Twelve years later the taxpayers are paying the price of that patronage appointment and the agreement that Lettre brokered representing the "Clarkstown special unit of the CSEA". 

In 2014 the situation looks set for a repeat run of the 2002 scenario in Clarkstown. A part-time patronage position was created by the Town Board for the Independence and Working Families party's political heavyweight, County Legislator Frank Sparaco. 

He is now being paid $76,500 for 25 hours of part time work reportedly to assist Highway Superintendent Ballard with "constituent services calls" in hurricanes and snowstorms while surreptitiously recording eight hours of conversations with a Town employee and a Town councilmen. His future seems secure to the extent that a new office is reportedly being constructed for him with the initiative being led by none other than Clarkstown's King of Diamonds Ed Lettre. 

And so the wheel of history turns for yet another revolution. Clarkstown can no longer restrain its annual tax increases to stay within the tax cap which means that in addition to the Town's residents having to continue to pay exorbitant salary costs, exorbitant pension liabilities, exorbitant taxes, and exorbitant tax increases, they may also have to forgo the future property tax relief that Governor Cuomo has promised if local governments manage to stay below the tax cap in 2014 and reduce their budgets. 

Meanwhile those who have benefited in milking Clarkstown's taxpayers through patronage appointments head towards a comfortable retirement while the next batch are arriving to suckle at the Town's breast. The situation today is best summed up by Aldous Huxley who said: "That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history".

Whether the taxpayers of Clarkstown, who continue to pay for this patronage folly, have learned their lessons is something that only time will tell.

This blog is authored by Michael N. Hull, a retired senior citizen. Hull contributes periodically to the Facebook page Clarkstown: What They Don't Want You To Know.