Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is asking the David A. Montoya, inspector general for the Department of Housing and Urban Development to investigate some "possible financial and administrative mismanagement at the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority." (Imagine that!?)

The request is based in part on information from John Kaufmann, the man who has fed this story since its inception with fresh information like logs for an intriguing fire (couple examples here and here, — he even made a guest post on this blog). The other part of what Grassley is basing his questions on is reporting from The Saratogian. You might recall, we've written about the SSHA once or twice?

Anyway, Grassley's office is specifically looking at the potential conflict of the SSHA hiring one of their employees sons as their attorney at $37,500 a year as well as some of the travel expenses the Comptroller deemed inappropriate in the past, the hiring of an assistant director with a starting salary of $89,500, as well as some other things.

This isn't the first time Grassley has questioned some of the SSHA's practices — not even the first time he has questioned whether there is nepotism in the publicly-funded authority.

Here is the letter he sent to the inspector general. I'll be following it as always.

2014-2-7 CEG to HUD OIG (Saratoga Springs Housing Authority)

Well the Housing Authority was as contentious as ever Tuesday night at the City Council meeting where Democrats attacked each other over what should be done about the salaries of the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority.

"You need to do your job tonight and take a vote on this resolution," Finance Commissioner Michele Madigan told Public Safety Commissioner Christian Mathiesen, who was trying to table the vote on disapproving Housing Authority salaries proposed by Madigan.

Mathiesen said he did his job every City Council meeting.

"You're not doing it tonight by asking me to table this resolution," she responded.

Mathiesen was arguing that he needed more information about the salaries before he could vote to disapprove the SSHA salaries Tuesday night.

That was, ironically, the same argument Mayor Scott Johnson used to justify voting for the disapproval, something he said was "not a vote of no confidence" about the SSHA, just a vote that indicated he did not have enough information to make up his mind.

Meanwhile Madigan and Accounts Commissioner John Franck basically said Mathiesen was making their point for them.

They have repeatedly requested information from the SSHA and though some has been provided, the supporting documentation for the salaries has not been among it.

SSHA policy requires that they basically justify the salaries they pay their employees.

"I cannot even fathom how you can justify a public employee's salary doubling in four years," Madigan said (again to Mathiesen).

As an explanation, here's something from a year and a half ago:

"(Executive Director Ed) Spychalski’s 2011 compensation is $151,956, not including benefits, including the use of a publicly-owned vehicle. His starting salary in November 2006 was $74,777 and he has received $77,179 in pay raises since then."

That included two bonuses, so in the fiscal year that starts next month his salary is being proposed as about $145,000.

"Is he overpaid? Possibly," Mathiesen said. "Is he outrageously overpaid? I don't think so."

Mathiesen said he needed more information from the Housing Authority before he would vote on the issue.

"We've been talking about this for 19 months now," Franck said. 

Here's another couple tidbits from past stories:

According to the State Comptroller's audit of the SSHA conducted last year, Spychalski makes more than 93 percent of the housing authority directors in the country.

That includes the directors Plattsburgh, Troy, Schenectady and Albany, each of which handles “significantly more tenant rentals” than the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority.

In fact, Spychslki at his peak made about $45,000 less than the New York City Housing Authority director, John Rhea, who managed 178,882 apartments, 2,602 residential buildings and 334 developments, according to its website.

Anyway, it's unlikely the vote will have much of an effect on the SSHA.

They vote on their 2013-2014 salaries with their budget Thursday and Board member Al Callucci said he expects the budget to pass, as is.

"There's no reason it shouldn't," he said, after the City Council meeting. 

I've been meaning to post something on Accounts Commissioner John Franck's intention to wipe the board clean at the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority since he mentioned it last week to me. Well, the City Council agenda reminded me, since the first item on his agenda at Tuesday's city council is a resolution urging the mayor to do just that.

The full resolution is below, and a story should be posted soon.

Resolution to oust the SSHA Board of Commissioners by

Sources who couldn't speak on the record say the Comptroller's audit of the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority will be out this fall, not, as some people have suggested, years from now.

Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said it would come out some time in the fall, but many people questioned whether that would actually happen, particularly given the years it took for the audit of the Troy Housing Authority.

But I'm told the draft report has already been completed and submitted to the board for review. They were given some amount of time (some time between 30 and 60 days) to turn it around with any comments they would like to add or criticisms they would like to lodge.

I've been trying to get that information on the record for print, but Chairman Eric Weller has not been available (or his phone has been out of commission, as it is starting to seem) for about a week now.

I have only second-hand information on the contents of the report, but I'm told it doesn't address the relationship between the Saratoga Affordable Housing Group and the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority.

Again, that information is not confirmed, but if true, it would seem to have missed a big issue. The "volunteers" from the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority — the SSHA facilities manager, accountant, executive director and others — who all wrote letters saying they only worked off-the-clock on SAHG business was concerning to many.

Also concerning was the potential for co-mingling of funds between the two groups. Of course, authorities at the Authority say that wasn't happening, but the fact that former Chairman Dennis Brunelle justified Ed Spychalski's $150+ taxpayer-funded salary, in part, based on his work with the non-profit SAHG raises some serious questions.

Obviously we'll have to wait and see what the Comptroller's report says, but if that relationship isn't addressed (as DiNapoli said it would be when he came into The Saratogian to discuss some of the issues) I think they may need to do another.

But again, the fact that it isn't included is inconclusive, as I haven't seen the report itself. 

Busy week last week, so I never got to blog about a few things. I'll start with the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority Meeting.

The rumor before the meeting was that Ken Ivins was going to be putting these resolutions forward that were "sure to spark some debate" as one person told me.

The resolutions would force the chair to go to the City Council for salary approvals, roll back Director Ed Spychalski's salary to a modest $116k (down from $152k last year and $144k this year, in case anyone doesn't know — I'd link to a previous story but there is so much history to this that I think it would be more efficient just to put "Spychalski" into the search bar on The Saratogian's main site), and would change the SSHA's policy on contract approval to encompass anything more than $2,000.

Well, there was debate, but it was just about whether to discuss the resolutions at last week's meeting. Spoiler alert: they didn't.

When Ivins made his motion to put the issue on the agenda, a stir ran through the board.

Chair Eric Weller asked one of the SSHA's legal counsels, John Hicks, if adding the resolutions to the agenda "is germane?"

"It is not germane," Hicks responded.

Nonetheless, Ivins made his motion to add the resolutions followed by....

"Al, second the motion. Al. Al, second the motion. Second the motion Al."

Ivins, "whispered" urges to Al Callucci to second the motion (perhaps they had discussed it before), but Callucci was staring at the other side of the room. Finally, Ivins gave up (literally threw his hands up).

That's when Al seconded the motion, but there was a full ten seconds between the motion and its second. He later said "sorry I was asleep," with a laugh.

After all of that, too, they were the only two to vote to put the motions on the agenda. They'll be back, though, next month, when they will be "sure to spark some debate."

However, I wanted to put Mayor Scott Johnson's response to the Compliance and Communication Plan (memo, suggestion, whatever we're calling it now) from the SSHA. If you recall, I hadn't heard from him when I wrote the last story about it, but of course I hear from him the day after the story ran.

He got back to me June 28 (Thursday). He was out on Monday and Tuesday and didn't get the letter until Wednesday, which is why I hadn't heard from him.

*Also, as an aside, I never published a blog post that I wrote a week ago. I just published it. It's about Ed Spychalski's salary, if anyone still cares, but it published in the order it would have originally appeared. You can find it here.

So the SSHA's response, in the words of John Franck, basically "flipped (the City Council) the bird." It covered topics high and low (though I won't get into the author's recollection of how the bedbug controversy, executive director's salary and general operation of the SSHA actually worked), but it declined to address the approval process for employe salaries (about half of what the City Council asked them to address).

Mayor Johnson, though, wasn't surprised.

"I almost expected that kind of a response," he said. "The request was essentially asking them to admit they were wrong."

Just for a (really) quick recap, state law requires that the SSHA submit its employee salaries to the City Council for approval. The SSHA hasn't done it in more than a decade. The city Council asked them to — all of them since they stopped. That, Johnson said, was one of the problems he saw with the "request or demand" that the Council issued.

However, he said he expects the issue to be addressed in the audit being conducted by the State Comptroller's office — or at least the process which the SSHA used to come to the executive director's $152k compensation in 2011.

With that, I will wash my hands of the SSHA news... until the next scandal.

Stay classy Saratoga.

Ok, I guess I messed up and never published this. My bad. I wrote it June 29, the week after I was lambasted for "incorrectly" reporting SSHA Director Ed Spychalski's salary for months. I kept saying it was $152. Here's the June 21 post I wrote about the criticism I received.

Anyway, I was just going to edit a post (typo not content) and I noticed that I never published this post. So here it is. Sorry for the delay and if everyone has lost interest.


I'm sure most people are getting fatigued at the constant SSHA news. I know I am, and that is a bad sign.

However, I finally wanted to set the record straight on Executive Director Ed Spychalski's salary, which I was even a little soft on a definition for as of last week (*that is, last week when I originally wrote this in June).

His salary for 2011, according to the latest figure which I must say makes the most sense, was $144,921. That was base. Then, to get to that $151,956 number, you need to calculate in the one-time 5 percent merit-based bonus, cited in SSHA Chairman Eric Weller's correction to his Compliance and Communication response to the City Council.

At last week's SSHA meeting, I heard Accountant Cindy Gaugler reference "that 5 percent" when I was being attacked for misstating his salary as $152k.

Doing some of the math on my phone, just to make sure I was right, I made sure that would equal roughly the difference between his base and his ultimate compensation and viola!

However, that was dismissed when I asked about it as inaccurate and explained through the terms of mileage, healthcare costs and partial bonuses that I referenced in the blog post at that time.

Now we see what it is, once and for all. Without the bonus, thus, he is being paid $144,921 in the fiscal year starting July 1... unless he gets more bonuses.

And anyway, I still feel comfortable saying he made $152k in 2011, so I will, rather than explain the various ways I've heard it explained that he made $7k more than his salary.

Stay Classy, and sorry again for the delay, Saratoga.

But this is http://saratogaspringspha.org/.

After months of being down for undisclosed technical difficulties, the website is back up and running as of this morning.

At the top of the site is a disclosure stating the website is still under construction (which accounts for a few of the typos), but it does have new messages from the director, the mayor, and has minutes up from meetings up through May.

Members of the Board of Commissioners have stressed that there will be more transparency and more information than the previous site, which still had information from 2007 when it went down earlier this year.

*Update*

I just want to give credit where credit is due.

The new website of the SSHA is far more useful than its previous incarnation.

It has a lot of interesting info on there (including the budget, which I'll be dissecting over the next few days) and is well put together. By all accounts, it is the work of Ken Ivins.

The minor typo I referred to in yesterday's blog was overshadowed, in my mind, by the improvement to the rest of the site. It definitely puts a (badly needed) "transparency" feather in their cap.

*End of update, please resume your previously posted blog*

In other SSHA news, below is the letter from the SSHA Board of Commissioners to the City Council in response to their compliance and communication letter sent to the SSHA in mid-May (also posted below, as a draft, but I don't think they changed it much).

I haven't really had a chance to parse through it all yet, but I will, and will be writing a story about it for tomorrow's paper (or tonight's website, if you like).

If it appears on your computer as a small box, click to make it full screen to read it (sorry for the technical difficulties).

Compliance and Communication Plan:

Compliance Communication Plan SSHA-DRAFT CCM 05-15-12(1)


Response to the above plan:
SSHA Response 06-21-12

I just received a correction to the response above regarding salaries he referenced. Here is that correction:

SSHA Letter 6-21-12 Correction

Good comments to most of the recent Anonymous posts on my last blog post (the ones I actually posted). It's the kind of civic dialogue I think comments are there to promote.

So on to the points raised.

To the first anonymous who quoted the TU article (I actually had the same quotes from Eric Weller in an article or two I wrote. He made them at the City Council meeting on the big screen.)

His/her point was:

As we understand it, Chairman Weller has said in recent days that the Authority may resist HUD's new salary guidelines. Not long ago he was quoted in the following TU story saying that the SSHA was not subject to City or State law, but only followed HUD rules and regs. So is he now saying that the Authority will violate HUD regulations.

Yes, Weller did call into question how HUD would enforce their measures and I know they set aside extra money in the legal fees area of the budget for “possible litigation” with the board, though they would not elaborate on what for. I will be addressing it when I write about the
budget.
It will be interesting to see where the mayor's office, and indeed the city council as a whole, will end up on this when they receive the response to their Compliance and Communication letter (my feeling is they will get more of the latter than the former, but since I have received neither on my requests for their response, I'll have to wait and see).

Points from Anonymous #s 2 and 3 which I think are the same person.

The comments were:

Mrs. S. passionately states her husband did not take "a.....penny" for his work with the affordable housing group but the former chair says Ed got a $5,000 bonus for that work. Have I got that right? And why is he getting paid mileage when he was given a car? Actually he maybe not only was given a truck but apparently he (or maybe a member of his family?) had use also of that Jeep with the mysterious EZ Pass that if I recall was Ed's personal pass put on an Authority car. Any way you add it up Ed is more than generously compensated.

Mrs. S. says that, yes. Dennis Brunelle said otherwise, but he said so before it had become an issue.

Co-mingling their funds is a big no-no. I'm not an accountant, so I can't tell what's ok and what's not, but I did raise the issue when I spoke to State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. He said he had not heard from his auditors about the non-profit, Saratoga Affordable Housing Group, but that
he would direct them to investigate the potential co-mingling of the funds.

Early on, when we were questioning the board about Ed Spychalski's salary, Brunelle justified his huge pay increases, in part, through his work at the SAHG, saying that if they had to pay a developer for that there would be a hefty fee, so really they were saving money.

Then, of course, came the letters from employees of the SSHA, including Spychalski, all saying the same thing: “It was all volunteer time.”

From beginning to end it seems like the story changed, but I guess the audit will be the ultimate decider.

As for mileage, I'm told he only has the mileage covered when he is officially working, not when he drives to and from work with the taxpayer funded truck. That mileage he is taxed on.

The next comment was:

On a different but related topic. I understand Callucci and Ivins, the Mayor's
appointees, voted to add $7,000 to the SSHA travel/training item in the budget
bringing the total up from $15,000 to $22,000. This seems like a lot but I'm
wondering what other agencies of this size spend on this. Any idea?

I don't know what other ones make, but the $7k addition was a compromise. The line item was initially cut from $30,000 to $15,000. Ken Ivins pointed out that it was one of the areas they were criticized and suggested initially not raising the $15k at all.

One of the other members of the board --Johanna Dushlek – said with three new members on the board they shouldn't cut back on conferences and other development opportunities and suggested bringing it back up to $30,000. While I don't know how much other organizations spend on these conferences, they are always in places like Las Vegas or Orlando, so it's probably not cheap. Interesting point, though, I'll look into it.

Keep up the intelligent, informed commenting. If you have questions that I haven't addressed, post them and I'll review them so that next time I talk to the board or Spychalski, I can ask them. And of course, keep the comments classy, Saratoga.

However, that site, located at http://saratogaspringspha.org is supposed to be up imminently, according to the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority Board of Commissioners — in particular their go-to computer guy Kenneth Ivins, who owns (is) Ivins Computer Consulting.

Ivins says he is working on the site, which has been down for months (I heard on the down-low a while back that the site was hacked, though I never saw any proof one way or another). He said it should be up in the next week, possibly by Monday or Tuesday, and that it will have a lot more information on it than the previous site hosted.

That was one of a few loose ends I wanted to report on for the SSHA.

Another is the salary issue. I was berated during the public comment period at Thursday's meeting. First, one resident asked a general question about newspapers, but referred to my Wednesday article about new HUD guidelines. "Why do they have to keep crucifying him in the paper?" she asked.

Spychalski's wife also addressed me, saying "I expect you can print an accurate salary," after pointing out that her husband did not receive "a god damn penny" for his work at the Saratoga Affordable Housing Group.

Anyway, I figured I'd take the time to address what some see as a misrepresentation of Ed Spychalski's salary.

I (and every other paper reporting on the SSHA) write that Spychalski made $152,000 in 2011.

In fact, according to members of the SSSHA Board of Commissioners, his base salary was roughly $145,000 ($144,921 as reported today at the SSHA meeting) in 2011.

However, he took home $151,956 in fiscal year 2011, according to Civil Service records.

The difference of those two numbers still evades me. I was told initially by then-chairman of the SSHA board Dennis Brunelle the difference was due to a $5,000 bonus he was paid for his work with the Saratoga Affordable Housing Group (which some have said is improper to begin with), but adding those doesn't make $152,000.

I was also told it represents salary plus his compensation for mileage, but the numbers I've seen for mileage don't add up either.

Now I'm told that the bonus was spread over two years, that mileage is involved, but only some of it, and somehow his health plan may also be involved in compensation.

Anyway, I've not gone with the $145,000 number because it seemed misleading, since he took home $44 shy of $152,000 in compensation in 2011.

I reported it in mid-March, but I did so briefly and vaguely, again because Brunelle told me the difference between Spychalski's $144k-and-some-change base salary was the $5,000 bonus and that math doesn't add to $151,956.

In the end, I trust the numbers I can check. According to an operating budget for the fiscal year ending in June 2012, Spychalski's salary rate is listed as $151,956, so that is where I am going to stay for that year.

However, I will note that the $144k number is supposedly in the 2013 budget (starting July 1). They told me it is $144,921, but I've heard one closer to $144k than $145k, so I'll need to check the budget when the website is up.

Stay classy Saratoga (particularly in the comments).

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The City Council voted to forward a “Compliance and Communication Plan” to the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority.

The plan, drafted by Finance Commissioner Michele Madigan, outlines steps the SSHA can take to comply with state law that requires housing authorities must submit their employee salaries to the City Council for approval, something the SSHA has not done in more than a decade.

The plan states that the SSHA “shall bring forth to the Saratoga Springs City Council for approval” all salaries and salary increases since May 2000 to this year for retroactive approval as well as all future salaries and an annual report from the SSHA.

Many of the commissioners, while admitting they would likely not be seeing any of the money already paid out over the last decade, have stated that in order to look at future salaries, they would need to revisit some of the major salary increases over the last ten years.

Most notably in that was SSHA Executive Director Ed Spychalski’s $152,000 annual salary which is up more than 100 percent from the $75,ooo he made in 2006 when he took the position.

Accounts Commissioner John Franck, though, has also questioned SSHA accountant Cindy Gaugler's similar salary increases. She went from $48,000 in 2006 to $85,000 this year, according to the city's records.

Mayor Scott Johnson, while voting in favor of the plan, was hesitant about demanding the salaries for approval because, according to a legal opinion from the city attorney’s office, the city has no recourse if the SSHA does not comply with the requirements.

“I’m not quite sure we have the authority for that,” he said. “If they refuse, what will our next step be? As a council we should be prepared with a plan B.”

Johnson suggested bringing representatives from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the New York State Office of Homes and Community Renewal and the SSHA into one meeting to work out what organization has oversight over the SSHA — a suggestion proposed by Madigan earlier this year.

“I thought the same thing,” she said, “but I determined this was the best course for now,” referring to her proposed plan.

Franck, who has argued vehemently for the city to take a more assertive role over the SSHA, said “We shouldn’t even have to ask for this. I don’t know what a plan B is. I just think we have to follow what the law is.”

He said most of the SSHA’s employee salaries would be likely approved by the Council without issue. "I've seen the numbers in Civil Service and most of them are not egregious," he said.

“They can say no,” he said. “If we don’t even ask, I think we’re derelict in our duties.”

One of the SSHA board members was in the audience at the City Council meeting and said he agreed with Johnson’s suggestion to hold a meeting to work out the issue of oversight.

“We have new board members with a different mentality than old board members,” said Al Callucci, one of the newest members of the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority Board of Directors.

In the end, though, the Council voted to move forward with Madigan’s Compliance and Communication Plan as a first step.

Below is the plan. The only thing they changed from the draft is that the bi-annual report was changed to annual.
Compliance Communication Plan SSHA-DRAFT CCM 05-15-12(1)

John Kaufmann, the man who is responsible for blowing the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority story wide open from the beginning, has been feeding local newspapers and television news stations (including this one) with information on the SSHA for months.

Over the weekend, as every reporter in this area covering the SSHA sifted through the 55 page document from HUD to Sen. Chuck Grassley (available within this story), Kaufmann did his own sifting.

I agreed to let him post his analysis of the information on my blog as a guest blogger. This is a first for me, but given how much Kaufmann has driven this story in every newspaper in the area (with one notable exception) I decided to let him do it. I have personally used Kaufmann's information as a starting point, but he has never made an appearance in one of my stories

Below is Kaufmann's post. I have not changed any of it nor have I confirmed anything within it. Take it as you will.


There are a number of interesting things revealed by the HUD letter and supporting documents that was sent to Grassley:

1. On December 8, 2011 for some reason the Authority bookkeeper wrote to HUD rather than Ed or G. Hawthorne who heads maintenance on the issue of Bed Bugs. In her memo she tells HUD about making the steamers available to the tenants and asks “…BUT legally – are we responsible for more? Between the video and the steamer, are we covered? We thought we were until we read HUD 2011-20 – where it sounds like we might have to do more…BUT this following (sic) paragraph taken from the notice sounds like HUD will pay for it???” Consider this paragraph carefully in light of what subsequently occurred. It appears that they are trying to do is little as possible. She wants to know if they have “covered” themselves by just providing the steamers to the tenants and inquires whether they are legally obligated to do more. The HUD person then refers the issue to the in house engineer. These were not the kind of questions one would ask if one’s priority was the extermination of bed bugs.

2. The engineer advises them that they are indeed obligated to fully address the problem. The engineer goes on to express concern about the danger of having tenants using steamers and expresses grave reservations about the effectiveness of this approach. Further on she advises that “Most other housing authorities I speak to are covering the costs of professional exterminators so long as tenants follow their requirements of the
extermination…” Consider again that this memo to SSHA is dated on December 8.

3. On December 20 (you can see the video in the archive of city council meetings) Ed Spychalski tells the council that “we are all over this.” This is now about two weeks later and he has done nothing in terms of following HUD’s advice to hire a professional exterminator. In fact, it is not until John Frank drags the board in front of the city council on January 31, 2012 that they relent and hire an exterminator.

4. In another supporting document, Spychalski is quoted in the Times Union as saying that HUD would not let them properly address the bed bug issue. He told the same thing to Mark Mulholland in a channel 13 interview. The HUD cover letter specifically states that this is untrue and of course the supporting memos prove this.

5. Senator Grassley asked for the names, titles, and any salaries of the board members of any affiliated not-for-profits related to the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority. He was inquiring about the Saratoga Affordable Housing Group. In a very carefully crafted response the HUD letter says “Enclosed with this letter are copies of the latest available SSHA financial statements, which do not indicate that SSHA has any nonprofit affiliates.” Up until this last week the Saratoga Affordable Housing Group had as its board president, Ed Spychalski and its secretary was Gerard Hawthorn (head of maintenance for SSHA) . It currently has as its treasurer Dennis Brunelle. Sister Charla Cummins serves on both the SSHA and the SAHG. According to the new board president, Rocky Ferraro, the Saratoga Affordable Housing Group has no staff and relies entirely on the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority for its operation. An interesting question to ask is why HUD does not want to acknowledge the existence of SAHG. See item #6 on this.

6. As a private not-for-profit organization, the Saratoga Affordable Housing Group is not covered under the New York State Open Meetings Law and private citizens cannot have access to its documents under the Freedom of Information law. It has no traditional funding source over seeing it. The SAHG receives money from tenant rents and subsidies under the Federal Section 8 program which is administered by the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority. This kind of set up is ripe for abuse and in there are a number of national scandals (most recently LA and Philadelphia) where this has happened. Given the indifference to oversight that Mr. Spychalski’s boards exercise, this has the potential for becoming a convenient slush fund.

7. Most of the release from HUD is made up of the 2011 audit by Dickinson & Company which is a CPA firm with offices in Saratoga Springs and Greenwich. They have been doing the audits for the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority for many years. “Best Practices” used by many non-profits call for routinely changing auditors. The reason for this is that since the non-profit gets to choose its auditors and the fees can be quite substantial, there is the real danger of the relationship between the auditor and the non-profit too becoming too cozy.

8. I ran a non-profit for many years so I am familiar with such audits. I was struck by two things in reading it. First, how boiler plate it was. I highly suspect that if you had access to the previous years’ audits, with the exception of the tables for the expenditures and income and the dates, they would probably read exactly the same. The second and related thing is that there were no audit exceptions. This is a term for areas of problems that need improvement or correction. In the sixteen years I ran the agency I was associated with, I never had an audit that did have at least one exception and having served on other non-profit boards and reviewed audits, having a totally “clean” audit is highly unusual.

9. I believe that the purpose of including this audit by HUD was for filler to make the response seem extensive, to imply that their finances are proper, and to support the fiction that HUD does not know that the Saratoga Affordable Housing Group exists.

10. We know a number of things that should have come up with exceptions or at least questions in the audit. According to FOIL requests I have submitted, there is no record of the SSHA as reporting to the Internal Revenue Service the taxable benefit of the use of an Authority vehicle by the executive editor for his private use. We know that the executive director had his brother repair at least one Authority vehicle on a regular basis. We know that the board chairperson attended conferences in other states that were for four days but that the Authority paid for his room and per diem food expenses for a week. HUD strictly forbids its authorities from subsidizing operations of other entities. I foiled for any documents showing the use of HUD paid staff on work at the Saratoga Affordable Housing Authority. I received copies of the management agreements between SSHA and SAHG along with a stack of work orders for work needed in SAHG apartments. These work orders included no details as to the time the staff devoted to this work nor the materials used to do the work. There were no records as to general maintenance work such as mowing, snow removal, etc. Such records would be essential for insuring that SAHG paid SSHA for the work done on its behalf. In order to be safe, having received these documents, I followed up with SSHA asking if these were all the records they had and they confirmed that they were. I find it very troubling that their record keeping is clearly insufficient and that the auditing firm failed to note this.

11. In a memo from the bookkeeper to Ed Spychalski, she says: “Not that anyone from the city would understand, but as you would understand, the bulk of our travel is booked to the central office with non-federal funds.” She underestimates the people in this city and she surely underestimates the auditors from the Controllers’ office. They think they are being very smart by getting around federal/HUD oversight by using local money which comes from the rent paid by the tenants. This could be interpreted that they knew that the large amount of travel they were doing was excessive and so they thought that by using “non-federal” money they would get around any limits. I will leave it to the auditors from the New York State Controller’s office whether using non-federal money somehow limits their accountability for excessive travel.

Last weekend, local resident and Housing Authority critic John Kaufmann e-mailed me (as I'm sure he e-mailed every news agency in the area, judging by the fact that he frequently appears in stories about the Housing Authority in the Daily Gazette and the Times Union) about the Saratoga Affordable Housing Group.

They met Tuesday at Longfellow's Restaurant for their quarterly meeting. Kaufmann was encouraging newspapers to go and he, in fact, went himself to deliver concerns he has raised over asbestos at the buildings that the Housing Group tore down on Allen Drive for the new apartment complex.

Kaufmann, though, did not get to sit-in on the meeting. He was shown the door as soon as he came into the restaurant — by Housing Authority Executive Director Ed Spychalski who at the time was also the president of the Saratoga Affordable Housing Group.

And of course, that was the last meeting Spychalski was president of that group.

To be clear, though, the Saratoga Affordable Housing Group, while it receives public money through the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority and through grants and other avenues (and despite the fact that many of the same people are involved in both organizations), is a non-profit organization and thus is not subject to the same Open Meetings Law standards as the the Housing Authority.

"Ed told him it was a closed meeting," recounted Rocco "Rocky" Ferraro, the non-profit's new president, after the meeting. "He was not a happy person."

Ferraro said "It was felt the meetings were not necessary to be open to the public," but then added "We'll be evaluating alternatives for the future ... we want to have it as transparent as possible."

And he said being the president, he will make sure that happens.

As for the asbestos issue, Kaufmann was saying that it was improperly dealt with at the demolition and subsequent construction, something Ferraro denies.

"As far as I know everything went according to plan and met all of the OSHA requirements," he said, adding he recalls extensive conversation on the board about contracting with a company that specialized in asbestos removal because he remembers how expensive it was. "It was something we talked about a lot," he said. "We knew it going in."

I'll look into that further, just to confirm what Ferraro remembers, but that's what I know now.

That's all for now. Stay classy Saratoga.

Saratoga Springs Housing Authority Board of Commissioner Chairman Dennis Brunelle's (That's not a title. Now THAT'S a title) ears must be ringing after the City Council meeting Tuesday night.

Read about the full discussion in tomorrow's Saratogian. For now, I'm just going to put up this little tidbit because I've been sort of following Brunelle's imminent reappointment (or lack thereof) in the blog as of late.

Now if you'll recall, Mayor Scott Johnson said he does not expect Brunelle to request re-appointment to the Housing Authority board when his term expires in April.

Johnson said he has met with Brunelle "a number of times regarding (his tenure on the board)" and said "I think he is interested in doing other things."

That sounded a lot to me like a person stepping down to "spend more time with his family" but I let it go. I then tried to confirm it the next week with Brunelle, who seemed a little offended by the whole thing.

"I never said that," he said. "I told the mayor I would give it some serious thought and that's what I'm doing. I haven't gotten back to the mayor yet."

Well, at Tuesday's meeting it was much of the same from Johnson, who said he had talked to him "as recently as today" about the reappointment.

"I have made recommendations to him and I am still awaiting his decision," Johnson said during the meeting.

"Isn't it your decision not his?" asked John Franck.

"I'm giving him the option of deciding," Johnson replied.

It seems what he meant to say was he was giving him the option of stepping aside "to pursue other interests" or being just being told to go "pursue other interests."

I finally got the numbers for some of the Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, so I made a couple calls today.

Dennis Brunelle started things off.

In addition to talking about the legal opinion and possible litigation looming (see tomorrow's paper/website), I wanted to broach the subject of of Executive Director Ed Spychalski's contract, which has come under some fire,.

Brunelle wasn't available when I wrote that story, but I wanted his input.

He said they intend to do a new comparability study (the study that states that Spychalski's salary should be essentially in-line with a Saratoga Springs School District principal's) and that if that changed his salary, "his contract would have to be renegotiated anyway."

I asked him how that would be possible, since from what I understand and how it has been explained to me by a number of people including the mayor, getting out of the contract would be tough. Essentially, if the board sent him a letter of termination today, and if it was the 90 days before his contract renewal date as required, that would only cut one year off a continuously revolving 5-year contract, leaving four more years.

That's a lot of notice to have to give.

Brunelle said that is not how he sees it, but said he will have to talk to the Housing Authority's attorney about it.

Additionally, he said the idea that the contract was negotiated to the benefit of Spychalski, (see previous link), is "just not true."

"It was instituted to protect both parties," he said.

Finally, I got to the issue of his status on the board.

Mayor Johnson said last week in this article regarding, again, the legal opinion he's looking for (I feel like I am on the Housing Authority beat) that he did not believe Brunelle would be seeking another term (which Johnson would have to appoint him to).

Johnson said he met with Brunelle "a number of times regarding (his tenure on the board)" and said "I think he is interested in doing other things."

"I never said that," Brunelle said. "I told the mayor I would give it some serious thought and that's what I'm doing. I haven't gotten back to the mayor yet."

He said he believes the Housing Authority has done a lot in the last four or five years "A lot of good things," he said, and he still has not decided.

The mayor would not comment on whether he would reappoint Brunelle if he asked.

Eric Weller

Next I caught up with Eric Weller and checked with him about his attendance record.

Some may recall from previous posts (such as this one) that there were accusations floating around that Eric Weller was inappropriately reappointed by Mayor Scott Johnson to his third five-year term (that's commitment!) because A) three terms were allegedly illegal and B) Eric Weller never showed up to meetings in 2010.

Well, as far as I can tell both of those contentions are wrong.

In fact, according to everyone I've talked to (including the man himself) Weller attended most of the meetings in 2010 (not 5 out of 12 as the minutes seem to reflect) but they were not recording his presence because he was in Florida and attending via Skype.

That counts as far as I, and the board, are concerned.

"A couple of times I couldn't Skype-in because of technical difficulties," he said, via cellphone Wednesday.

Next, onto the bylaws.

In 2009 they clearly stated, as John Kaufmann pointed out in his letter to Mayor Scott Johnson: "The terms shall not exceed two (2) terms in succession."

But, things change. In 2010, the bylaws mention nothing of term limits and I hear they may have even been changed again.

"They were in conflict with the state and federal laws on this," Weller explained.

When he was looking for his third term, they researched that law.

According to Weller, the term limits were created in 1987, seemingly arbitrarily. Later, though, it was determined that it did not jibe with the laws HUD laid down in that it limited who the mayor could appoint. So they did away with it and thus, Weller's third term.

Anyway, I thought this would be a story when I started looking into it, but it seems like what we like to call a non-story so it will end here.

And Mayor Johnson wanted me to clarify this point as well, because as he said, there was nothing inappropriate with the appointment he made of Weller, according to the bylaws.

Until next time, stay classy Saratoga.

Well, Mayor Scott Johnson just returned my call and left me a message (while I was on the phone with Housing Authority board member Eric Weller, whose story will also come soon) saying the legal opinion on who is in charge of the Housing Authority will, in fact, not be released until Monday.

See the post below that I wrote yesterday for some context (and the one I wrote the day before if you want to know what's up with Eric Weller)

Johnson originally said at the City Council meeting last Tuesday it would be released within the week, then last Thursday he said it would be out by the middle of this week and now it will be out by Monday.

"There were some outstanding issues," Johnson said in the message, but said it will clear up a lot of issues.

"It really is comprehensive on all issues raised to date," he said, "including the validity of (Ed Spychalski's) contract, salaries, how the city has any authority over the Housing Authority. It is not cut and dried."

Meanwhile, Eric Weller said that may not be the end of the conversation.

"It is going to take a lot of legal advice and possibly legal action to answer it," he said. I asked him if he would be challenging the decision, if indeed it does indicate the City Council has to approve Housing Authority salaries. "It's something we would certainly question."

The story is obviously not done and there will be more to come, but that's all for now.

We should know tomorrow.

Word on the street is Mayor Scott Johnson will be coming out with the legal opinion he asked the Assistant City Attorney Tony Izzo to come up with regarding what authority the City Council has over the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority — in particular, the salaries therein.

The 1956 law to create the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority starts, in part, with:
"A municipal housing authority, to be known as the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority, is hereby created and established."

Then, when you go to the Municipal Housing Authority articles of the NYS Laws (actually it is under PBG- public housing- Article 3- Municipal Housing Authorities) section 32, it states:

"An authority shall select from among its members a vice-chairman, and it may employ, subject to the provisions of the civil service law applicable to the municipality in which it is established, a general manager, a secretary, technical experts and such other officers, agents and employees as it may require, and determine their qualifications, duties and, subject to the approval of the local legislative body, fix their compensation."

I went ahead and put the important part in bold/italics (lest ye should miss it). The issue is whether the City Council (local legislative body) has any authority over the Housing Authority's salaries (such as Director Ed Spychalski's $152k a year salary with bonus included).

The law seems to indicate it does but Mayor Johnson said "It is not a black-and-white issue. There are very much shades of gray."

We reported last week that Johnson was waiting on the opinion and I guess the wait is over. Word is it will be released tomorrow. We'll keep you posted.

According to some accounts, he isn't there more often than he is.
Local rabble-rouser John Kaufmann's numbers indicate Weller missed seven of 12 Housing Authority Board meetings in 2010. Of course, I don't know if that includes attendance via Skype or not.
Meanwhile, Weller was also just appointed to his third term, something Kaufmann also says is illegal because of the bylaws of the Housing Authority.
He called me to tell me he would be faxing this letter to Mayor Scott Johnson this morning after we talked about the issue yesterday:

Mayor Scott Johnson
Saratoga Springs City Hall
474 Broadway
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
March 8, 2012
Dear Mayor:
Following our meeting I reviewed the appointments to the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority. Please be advised that it appears that your appointment of Eric Weller to their Board of Commissioners violates their bylaws. Here is the relevant section of the bylaws:

Under Article II, Section : Five (5) members shall be appointed by the Mayor of the city of Saratoga Springs to staggered five (5) year terms in accordance with Section 30 of Public Housing Law. The terms shall not exceed two (2) terms in succession.
The following is a record of Mr. Weller’s appointments:
Eric Weller
- Original appointment 3/6/01 by Mayor Klotz
- Re-appointed 5/16/06 by Mayor Keehn
- Re-appointed 3/15/11 by Mayor Johnson

The next meeting of the Saratoga Springs Housing Authority will be on March 22, 2012. This will also be the last meeting they will have to stop the automatic extension of the executive director’s contract for the coming year.

I hope you will move expeditiously to fill the vacancy this creates.

Sincerely,

John Kaufmann



Now, full disclosure, I haven't had time to look into the claims he makes or independently confirm them (that's why this is a blog-post and not a story).

Furthermore, Mayor Johnson left me a message yesterday refuting some of that.

First, he said he does not believe Weller served consecutive terms (this was before he received Kaufmann's letter, which again I haven't confirmed the numbers in).

"I think he was on the board years ago, went off, and then went back on," Johnson said.

Moreover, he said that wouldn't matter anymore anyway.

"The old bylaws had a limit on how many terms you could serve," he said. "That was changed years ago, before I even took office."

He said current bylaws have no such restriction.

Update here: The bylaws with those restrictions were adopted in April 2009, so unless there is a newer copy I don't know about that seems to indicate that there is that restriction. I'll need to take that up with the mayor.

Anyway, we'll see. And if no one noticed in the story yesterday, Chairman Dennis Brunelle is probably not coming back to the Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, according to Johnson. I'd love to say "According to Brunelle," but unfortunately I haven't talked to him in more than a week.

He wouldn't give me his phone number. (Perhaps he doesn't want to be frequently berated with questions.) Instead, he said when I want to talk to him I should call Housing Authority Director Ed Spychalski, who can call Brunelle, who can call me.

I have made that call — several times this week. Spychalski said he has been calling, texting and e-mailing the chairman, but to no avail.

When I hear from him, I'll let everyone know what he has to say.

I thought I had it in hand.

I FOILed for it along with the financial information of the non-profit group, Saratoga Affordable Housing Group, headed by Housing Authority Director Ed Spychalski to develop properties in the city.

He handed me a manilla folder Tuesday and said it was in there.

It wasn't.

I honestly think it was a mistake. He and I discussed Gramercy's contract, but I didn't look for it in the packet because it was in-and-amongst the financials of the non-profit.

He told me, though, they were making "A buck and three-quarters an hour," which I took for 100 times that. He later confirmed that.

"It was a short-term arrangement," Spychalski said, corroborating Ed Wohlleber's statement about the contract.

However, Eric Weller, a board member on the Housing Authority Board of Directors confirmed the number but not the sentiment.

"It was a short-term contract," he said, saying it had been "terminated." "We were unhappy with the results."

Spychalski, in a meeting Tuesday, said the PR firm had done what it was supposed to do.

"I was getting calls at 9, 10 at night and at 6 in the morning," Spychalski said. "It was interfering with the work I do at the Housing Authority."

He said he hired Gramercy at the behest of the Housing Authority's attorney to field calls and help get info out there about the situation at the Housing Authority.

"We were getting crushed out there (in the press)" Spychalski said. And he said taking on Gramercy "helped a lot."

"I think I had to do it because I could not get the job done I do here," he said.

Spychalski said the Housing Authority hasn't gotten the final bill on the service. So far they have paid out about $5,000 (about 28.5 hours) and he said "there's not much more."

I received a response to my queries as to whether the PR firm had been let go, as was alleged in an anonymous comment on my blog post Thursday.

Here it is in its entirety from Eric Wohlleber, VP of Gramercy Communications:

“Not sure about a rumor, but I can tell you that our engagement does end on Sunday. Our work was limited in time and focused on responding to a large volume of media inquiries and assisting with the dissemination of information to the public. I would like to add that our job was never to ‘spin’ information, and any suggestion otherwise is an insult to a profession we take very seriously. Our company has a long track record of success and is well regarded for our professionalism and our many community works.”

As for the insults he takes exception to, that had me a little confused at first. That is until I received a "friendly" call from Wohlleber yesterday. He was responding to my calling him a "flack" in a blog post yesterday.

We had a "lively debate" to quote Dennis Brunelle when he described the Housing Authority's public meeting last month in which residents shouted about not being able to speak.

Now first off, a flack is, to quote Dictionary.com (which I also quoted to him):
flack
noun Sometimes Disparaging.
1. press agent.
2. publicity.
verb (used without object)
3. to serve as a press agent or publicist: to flack for a new rock group.
4. to promote; publicize: to flack a new record.

Not to be confused with:
Flak
noun
1. antiaircraft fire, especially as experienced by the crews of combat airplanes at which the fire is directed.
2. criticism; hostile reaction; abuse: Such an unpopular decision is bound to draw a lot of flak from the press.

Ok, so I admit it does say "sometimes disparaging," but the post was about him not releasing information as a public relations person.

He was pretty adamant that Gramercy was only on board to dispense information to the public and to help out the Housing Authority that was inundated by calls.

Of course, I reminded him the one thing he wouldn't release was how much he was being paid with public funds, i.e. taxpayer money.

He said the information would be "forthcoming" or would come "in due time" or something to that effect. I said I "eagerly await it."

Then he called into question my journalistic integrity for following up on "anonymous blog posts" which he found — as a former reporter — somehow insulting to the profession. I asked if he had ever responded to anonymous phone calls (you know, doing due diligence as a reporter?) he said he did, but he found that to be different in some way than following up on comments.

I don't know about when he was a reporter, but the internet is here now.

On an unrelated (or possibly related) note, Ed Spychalski responded to my FOIL regarding Gramercy's contract very quickly saying he will get the info to us Monday or Tuesday (and added "Go Giants," so his heart is in the right place).

So we'll get the info after Gramercy stops working with the Housing Authority. If it had come out in the first place, of course, it probably would have just been a line in the original story they were introduced in. Of course now it will likely be a story Tuesday or Wednesday.