Burgettstown council president to pay $10K after findings
State investigators allege the Burgettstown council president surreptitiously opened a new bank account outside borough control to avoid scrutiny of parks and recreation funds.
The revelation is part of a sprawling, 45-page final adjudication and order the Ethics Commission released last week detailing a consent agreement with council President James Reedy II. Its disclosure came after Reedy agreed to pay $10,460 in a deal with the watchdog body.
According to the order, Reedy breached the Ethics Law “by using his position on council to obtain free and unfettered access/usage of the Kids Center” – a former senior center the borough purchased in 2001 to host activities for area children – “by Friends of the Burgettstown Kids Center Inc.,” a nonprofit of which he’s president.
Washington County District Attorney Gene Vittone said his office would review the order “and take appropriate action” on whether to pursue criminal charges.
Reedy and borough solicitor Lane Turturice could not be reached for comment.
Reedy was appointed liaison to the Parks and Recreation Committee after he took office in 2006. Later that year, he started facing pressure from then-council president Pam Church to share regular reports about the borough’s parks and recreation finances.
In March 2009, according to the ethics report, Reedy opened a checking account under the name “Kids Center” without telling other borough officials.
Ethics Commission documents allege Reedy – one of three people with signature authority over the account – “concealed the existence of the ‘Kids Center’ bank account from Council and the Borough Auditor.”
Reedy and parks committee volunteers acting on his direction reportedly used that account to deposit money that should have gone into the borough parks and recreation account, of which Reedy “turned all aspects” over to the borough in 2010 after an auditor and accountant confirmed the money in it was public, according to the documents.
“Reedy was consciously aware at the time the deposits were made that the funds were Borough funds/public monies, and he made the decisions over how the funds were to be used,” the commission concluded.
Reedy “realized a private pecuniary benefit of no less than $42,888.05,” the amount deposited into the Kids Center account between February 2011 and July 2016, according to the documents. During the same period, $42,819 was drawn from the account.
Deposits into the borough parks fund totaled $2,300 over the same period, documents show.
Reedy directed checks for rentals of borough park pavilions and the Kids Center be made out to “Kids Center,” giving the borough secretary-treasurer the checks only if they were made out to the borough or “Burgettstown Parks and Recreation,” and turned cash over only when those paying “specifically directed the fee be applied” to the borough parks fund, investigators said.
Another account tied to the group also garnered attention. In 2009, Reedy allegedly told Janet Castellino, another borough official, to change the tax identification number of another checking account set up for use by the committee organizing the annual Community Day from the borough’s tax ID number to the number associated with Friends of the Kids Center.
Reedy was one of those with signature authority over the account, and the Ethics Commission said the move allowed the Friends to realize a “private pecuniary benefit” of $26,030 before the account was closed in late 2014, the year after the last Community Day was held. The fund was empty at that point, according to documents.
Reedy also allowed the Friends to use the center for bingo and “small games of chance” without paying the $60 rental fee between 2011 until at least the end of 2015, the ethics report said.
The nonprofit didn’t maintain a record of those events in 2011, ’12 and ’16. The commission found 131 events were held from 2013 to 2015, which would have cost the group $7,860 had it paid the $60 fee to use the center, which the commission said was charged at Reedy’s discretion.
The commission found the events raised $148,280 for the group from February 2011 to October 2016. The group asserted the events raised funds for the parks committee; the money was deposited into three different banks accounts associated with the group over which Reedy had signature authority, the commission said.
The Ethics Commission agreed to take no further action against Reedy as part of the consent agreement.
Reedy also admitted to two other violations as part of the deal: voting in August and September 2014 to approve financial reports that included $800 in payments from the borough to his sons for grass-cutting services, and failing to file ethics forms with the borough for 2010 and 2013.