Former town accountant in Winchendon says she's being 'thrown under the bus'

Former town accountant in Winchendon says she's being 'thrown under the bus'

By George Barnes TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
george.barnes@telegram.com

WINCHENDON — Former Winchendon Town Accountant Charlotte Gallant says Town Manager James M. Kreidler was well aware of financial problems facing the town but is now trying to place the blame on her.

"I'm flabbergasted. I'm just flabbergasted that a year after I am out of office, this comes about that all of this is my fault," she said.

Mrs. Gallant said she was blindsided by the recent controversy. She said she thinks she has been "thrown under the bus" by Mr. Kreidler, who claims not to have been aware of problems with deficits in the town's health care trust. Instead he points to Mrs. Gallant, not saying that she did anything improper but saying that her method of accounting led to the account being underfunded.

Mrs. Gallant said the accusations came as a shock to her because she regularly worked with Mr. Kreidler attempting to solve budget problems.

"I'm just sick with it," she said. "I'm totally crushed."

Mrs. Gallant said she followed practices that were in place before she was hired by the town in 2008. She said she regularly told Mr. Kreidler that health insurance matters for town workers, teachers and retirees needed to be dealt with, but only once during the five years she was there did he have the rates that the employees pay increased, by 3 percent. She said she told him the rates needed to be increased more than that.

Under the current system, the town pays 60 percent of what goes into the health care account and employees pay 40 percent. The amount going in proved not to be enough when the town was hit with 13 major health bills.

Mrs. Gallant said she regularly paid the health insurance bills because it was the town's obligation to do so. She did not realize catastrophic bills were coming in because she did not get the information about claims. She said it was not her job to be managing the account, just keeping track of what the town was paying into the account.

"All I do is keep the books," she said.

Mrs. Gallant said she was receiving reports from the town's consultant that showed deficits in the health trust account, but they were small, and the figures would continually change as money went in and out of the fund. In October 2012, the town's auditing firm said the town had far too little money in the health account. She said she and the auditors brought the matter to Mr. Kreidler and he fired the consultant. Since then, she said, she is not sure how the consultant's work is being done.

What has evolved since then is a deficit that Mr. Kreidler estimates to be $2.3 million. Other estimates are as high as $4 million to $5 million.

Mrs. Gallant said Mr. Kreidler is placing the blame entirely on her, though she and the town manager regularly talked about the budget. Mr. Kreidler has said he does not oversee the accountant and did not talk about the health care account until the extent of the problem became clear after October 2012.

Mrs. Gallant was criticized for not keeping selectmen up to date on budget issues, but she said she would have supplied selectmen with budget information if they had asked. She said they did not.

She said the only selectman who ever took time to meet with her about specific budget issues was Beth Hunt. She said she met once with Jackson Blair but about more general things. She said the other selectmen never came to her office.

Mrs. Gallant said the town has regular year-end deficits and it deals with them. Along with snow and ice deficits, which are a regular part of the town budget, the town ran deficits in various other accounts, which were always paid up at year-end town meetings or the next annual town meeting.

She said the bills in the deficit accounts were paid with Mr. Kreidler's approval. She added that department heads overspent with Mr. Kreidler's approval. She said that at the end of fiscal years she would send a letter to department heads letting them know that if they intended to overspend their budgets, they needed to contact Mr. Kreidler.

The practice helped get the town through each year, even if it was not how budgeting is normally done.

"It's a known practice. It's not the right way to do things," Mrs. Gallant said. "We've been tight. We have not had any money. We did the best we could, and I am saying 'we' because we worked together on this."

One of the problems that contributed to the current situation was a vacation Mrs. Gallant took starting Aug. 1. She said many final bills for fiscal 2014 came in the week before she left and she was unable to deal with them all. She said she was not able to close the books. That work was left to the new accountant.

She had planned to return to work after vacation and work with the new accountant on her transition to Winchendon's system. Instead she fell extremely ill during vacation and never returned to work. She instead retired. Because of that the books were not done until the spring and problems escalated.

Mrs. Gallant said she did the best she could for the town and is shocked at the criticism now leveled at her without anyone asking to hear her side.

Contact George Barnes at george.barnes@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @georgebarnesTG