The City of Ansonia may end up locked in a court battle with its former town clerk over how to resolve the ownership of a $350,000 bank account.
The former clerk, Madeline Bottone, has notified the city of her “intention to litigate” the question of who owns a bank account which she used for years to pay herself and an assistant, as well as accumulate fees she treated as a retirement nest egg.
Aldermen on Tuesday voted unanimously to pay a Shelton accounting firm up to $25,000 to perform a forensic audit of the account.
Background
For years, Ansonia allowed its town clerk to take a percentage from the fees collected from the public, in addition to being paid a flat salary.
That changed last month, when Aldermen restructured the clerk’s office to pay a flat salary of $72,000 to the clerk.
But under the old system, Bottone had used a bank account in which funds collected by her office over the years accumulated to the tune of about $300,000, Mayor David Cassetti told Aldermen last month, saying he was placing the account “under examination” so the city could determine the best course of action.
Days after Cassetti’s announcement, a city labor attorney told Aldermen that Bottone viewed the account as a retirement fund.
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No one has accused, or even implied, that Bottone, who retired this month after eight terms in office, or anyone in her office did anything wrong — but the new administration in City Hall complained about way the system was set up.
Audit Ordered
On Tuesday, Cassetti asked Aldermen to approve a forensic audit of the former town clerk’s account, to be conducted by Blum Shapiro, an accounting firm with offices in Shelton.
In a letter to Aldermen, Cassetti said the balance of the account is now about $350,000, and “resolving this situation is made difficult by the lack of adequate documentation pertaining to the account and the complexity of the issues in play.”
“The information provided by a forensic accounting will give us the information we need to resolve this matter,” Cassetti wrote. “Without an accounting, any resolution will be based on a woefully incomplete set of facts.”
Cassetti’s letter is posted below.
The audit will cover a period going back 14 years from Dec. 31, 2013, according to a letter from one of the firm’s partners to the city.
The audit will include:
- Analyzing the fees taken in by the clerk’s office
- Analyzing deposits, withdrawals, checks, and wire transfers
- Reviewing and analyzing the city’s audit reports
After Tuesday’s meeting, John Marini, the city’s corporation counsel, said Bottone views the money as rightfully hers — and has notified him through her attorney that she’s willing to sue to get it.
Marini said the city doesn’t have a position on the matter yet — that is the purpose of the audit. However, he called what little documentation the city has received regarding the account “bewildering.”
“Essentially we are requesting the audit so we can make a determination one way or the other,” Marini said. “If this did proceed to litigation we would need an analysis like this somewhere along the line.”
He noted that in his research on the matter, he hasn’t found any state or local laws to support the system by which the town clerk was paid a base salary in addition to a percentage of fees.
“There’s nothing that authorizes this system in state statute, the charter, or the code,” he went on.
