Former worker allegedly destroyed it.

07/13/01

By PETER HALL The Express-Times

PHILLIPSBURG - A set of records detailing the town’s fixed assets remains incomplete two years after their disappearance led to criminal charges for a former town official.

The town’s 2000 audit revealed that a database which tracks town-owned items ranging from electric typewriters to garbage trucks is still not up to date.

Town Auditor William Schroeder of Randolph Township, N.J.-based Nisivoccia and Co. presented the 2000 audit to town council Tuesday and recommended fixing the problem.

In July 1999, the Warren County Prosecutor’s Office and New Jersey State Police began an investigation of the disappearance of the computer records from town offices. Included in the missing records was the list of fixed assets, which were then valued at $36 million.

The investigation led to charges of official misconduct and computer theft for former Town Administrator Frank Tolotta. Prosecutors alleged he destroyed the files the day he left his job.

Tolotta, who pleaded not guilty, was accepted into the county’s pretrial intervention program and was ordered to pay restitution and perform community service.

Town Clerk and Administrator Michele Broubalow said the files were restored by Paterson, N.J.-based Moore Industries sometime in 1999, but the new computer hard drive crashed a few months later and the restored records were lost again.

Broubalow said the company has a backup copy of the files, but efforts to get the company to reinstall the files have so far been unsuccessful.

Chief Financial Officer Joseph Hriczak said Thursday he contacted the company, but the restoration was never completed.

"I don’t know what happened," he said "I don’t know if they called or contacted someone else. All I know is it wasn’t done."

The result of the incomplete data is an inaccurate representation of the town’s total assets, Hriczak said.

The state requires municipalities to keep records of items that cost more than about $200 when new and have a certain useful life. The records are designed to provide a more complete picture of the town’s worth for investors who buy municipal bonds, Hriczak said.

"They want to see if it’s going to be a secure investment or whether we’re going to be an Orange County, Calif. - in default," he said.

The data is stored on a standard personal computer and is used to generate a paper copy of the records used to track town property.

Hriczak said he and Broubalow are considering ways to bring the records to date.

If the data can be restored to the computer, town officials can try to update it, or have a new inventory taken, he said.

Hriczak said making the changes won’t be easy.

"I know some things have moved around so it’s going to be a difficult beast to accomplish," he said. "We were leaning toward having it done over."

When the last inventory of town property was taken in the mid-1990s, it cost about $7,200, Hriczak recalled.

"Prices would have gone up since then, so if we had it done again, it would cost more than that," he said.

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-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001