At a special meeting of the Warren Town Council held on Monday night, the council unanimously agreed to put out a search for someone to work on a temporary basis to help sort out financial questions that have arisen in past weeks regarding revenues and expenditures related to the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2024.

“What I think we need to do, and I hope the council will agree, we need to shore up the finance office and make sure that office has as many people in there that know what they’re doing,” said Councilman Joe DePasquale, who requested the agenda item and made the motion. “I’m looking for someone in there who has municipal budget experience to come in and, once and for all, understand the objective, close out the books, tell us what are the over-expenditures, what line items can cover those over-expenditures, and for the August meeting, once and for all close the 23-24 budget. As we start off this July fiscal year, I feel that that is important.”

When asked by Council President John Hanley as to where the funding for the position would come from, DePasquale recommended taking it from the salary line of the finance department.

Meeting resulted from high tensions last week
Considering Warren has a full-time finance director, you might be wondering why the Council was considering bringing in help to shore up last year’s budget, and why that would be funded out of the salary line for the finance department.

The reason for the special meeting occurring in the first place came as a direct result of the regularly scheduled meeting of the Town Council a week prior on July 9, which ended on a rather tense note.

After receiving word from Town Manager Brian Sullivan that the Town had discovered $187,922 in outstanding bills for the wastewater treatment plant for the prior fiscal year, Councilman Joe DePasquale found the answers to how that could have happened — and how to resolve the issue — being offered by Sullivan and Finance Director Dave Burlingame to be dissatisfying, with the latter simply indicating he was going to look into it.

“I hate to tell you this, but I’m going to,” DePasquale said to Burlingame. “Coming into this meeting tonight and having you not prepared, and having you telling me that you’re going to look at it, when I have a bill owed last month, is like the worst answer you can give me.”

DePasquale’s mood took a turn for the worse a few agenda items later during Burlingame’s presentation to the Council answering an inquiry about revenue and expenditure reconciliations that apparently hadn’t been filed or reported in a timely manner, which made it appear as though the Town hadn’t collected millions in revenue, and hadn’t spent millions in anticipated budgeted items prior to the close of the FY24 fiscal year on June 30, 2024.

Burlingame, who was hired in late December of 2023 after the financial crisis brought on by the $13 million lawsuit settlement, indicated that it was simply a matter of still being behind on getting the bank reconciliations done.

“We’re playing catchup here,” he said.

DePasquale asked if Burlingame understood how the municipal budgetary process worked, meaning if he understood that all budgetary line items must be “zeroed” out prior to the start of a new fiscal year (which began on July 1). When Burlingame — either sarcastically or earnestly, it wasn’t clear — said he didn’t understand that process, DePasquale lost what little remained of his composure.

“I may have to leave the room, because I’m staring a hole through my solicitor’s face and I’m looking at my manager and I’m hearing stuff that I’m never supposed to hear,” he shouted. “These aren’t the things you want this councilman to hear. You understand that?”

He left the room after finishing the statement.

Council President John Hanley, appearing to be equally perturbed by the reality of the financial situation in front of them but maintaining a cooler head, agreed that better, clearer information was needed.

“I’m going to ask the Town Manager to do anything you have to do to get this squared away by next month so we have hard numbers, we have our revenues and expenditures where they’re supposed to be, telling us where we’re at, what the hell is going on, and where we’re going,” he said. “Because we can’t keep coming in here not knowing where we’re going or where we’ve been.”

Once the dust had settled…
Reached on Thursday, July 11 following the fiery meeting, DePasquale apologized for losing his composure on Burlingame.

“I apologize if my conduct offended anyone,” he said. “I hold full responsibility for that.”

But DePasquale also remained adamant that he was dissatisfied with the quality of work being provided from the finance department, which led to the request on Monday.

“We’re going to give the Manager the authority to find someone and we’re going to have closer control with the manager of that department,” he said. “The council understands the magnitude of this situation and we are not going to let that slide away.”

Town Manager Brian Sullivan also took responsibility for the financial confusion occurring in the past couple of weeks.

“I meet with Dave everyday and work on getting these things accomplished,” he said. “I take responsibility for the confusion that was brought, especially for the sewer expenditures. I wasn’t, and shame on me, I didn’t have the correct paperwork with me to explain better what had taken place.”