City of Plattsburgh Mayor Donald Kasprzak and his city Council appear to be at odds over the spending of tax payer money.
Kasprzak says former Mayor Dan Stewart spent tax payer dollars frivolously on travel and accommodations to the tune of nearly $10,000. But outgoing City Councilor Mike Drew defends stewarts actions and says while the council may have not dotted all its I’s and crossed all its T’s – he finds it hard to believe that $10,000 in taxpayer money was wasted.
Stewart defends himself by saying that Kasprzak is using the media to spin a situation and smear him when he should have addressed the situation with him directly. Kasprzak maintains he is working in the best interest of taxpayers by making Stewarts spending habits public.
Former Chief Fiscal Officer James Buran proposed a written travel and credit card policy in 2005 that attempted to place internal controls over how taxpayer money was spent on travel and credit card purchases – but the city council shot the idea down.
Now, an audit by the New York State Comptrollers office shows evidence of wild spending on travel and accommodations by former Mayor Dan Stewart. The audit showed there was a lack of receipts to back up the expenditures that were submitted for payment and subsequently approved by the City Council.
However, outgoing City Councilor Mike Drew maintains that all of Stewart’s travel was on the up and up and denies any wrong-doing in his approval of the expenditure of taxpayer money.
Tags: audit, city council, City News, City of Plattsburgh, comptroller, Kasprzak, mike drew, Plattsburgh, press republican, wiry, wptz
