New Building Dept. Controls
A review of the East Hampton Town Building Department prompted by the discoveries of an undeposited 2010 check for a building permit, $290 in undeposited cash along with a receipt lacking a year, and a cash receipt book with pages missing has led to the development of stricter controls over the issuance of building permits and the collection of fee payments.
After finding the receipt book and undeposited money, the former chief building inspector, Thomas Preiato, and David Betts, the town’s public safety director, who oversees the department, requested an internal audit by the town’s finance staff in order to pinpoint potential problems and tighten procedures, said Charlene Kagel.
Ms. Kagel, the town’s chief auditor, presented the Finance Department’s findings to the town board on Tuesday.
The check had been found in the drawer of a building inspector who was out on administrative leave, she said. The cash was in a locked filing cabinet where cash and checks are normally stored. In addition, a mid-September Building Department deposit processed by the town’s bookkeepers contained a $150 cash payment for a building permit that had been issued in May, prompting scrutiny of revenue collection procedures.
The Building Department collected $1.4 million in revenue in 2013, Ms. Kagel said Tuesday, and issues about 1,300 to 1,400 new building permits annually. Last year’s revenues are expected to be close to the same.
Until recently, building permit applicants have been asked to submit a signed, blank check that would be filled out by department employees once an application was processed and permit fees calculated. That procedure has been discontinued, Ms. Kagel said, and payment is now solicited from applicants once fees are calculated.
Building inspectors, who previously accepted payments — a no-no “from the standpoint of perception,” Ms. Kagel said Tuesday — no longer handle cash or checks; only clerical staff members do.
Prior to last August, no written policy was in place for the collection of Building Department revenue, Ms. Kagel said in her report on the audit.
After new procedures were developed and instituted, Ms. Kagel and the audit staff visited the Building Department unannounced in early October to determine if the new protocols were being followed and found no problems.
Cash receipts, which had been sent to the Finance Department monthly, are now submitted for deposit on a weekly basis, Ms. Kagel told the town board, and changes are being made to the software program used to issue and track building permits and payments, so that records are maintained on permits that are voided.
As part of the audit procedure, the auditors checked a sampling of building permits issued in June in order to ensure that proper fees were collected. Of 103 examined, Ms. Kagel said, one was found to have been issued without payment. The auditors are discussing changes to computerized record keeping that would prevent such issues, which could grow out of a recording error, she said.
Mr. Preiato, the former chief building inspector, resigned as of Oct. 30 and took a post as chief building inspector for the Village of Sag Harbor.
Before his resignation, he leveled disciplinary charges against Robert Fisher, a building inspector with the town for 10 years, who was suspended without pay for 30 days on Sept. 16. Mr. Fisher subsequently resigned as of Nov. 30, and retired as of early December.
At present, the Building Department has two full-time building inspectors. John Lascari was appointed by the town board as a senior building inspector in September. Daniel Case is the other inspector.
Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said yesterday that two vacant building inspector positions, including that of the chief building inspector, will be filled as soon as a Civil Service review process is completed. In the meantime, Mr. Cant?well said, “The staff that is there has done a terrific job of keeping up with the workload and processing permits in a timely way.” Department employees include Ann Glennon, an administrative assistant, Evelyn Calderon, a clerk typist, and Allison Duchemin, an ordinance inspector.