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WIVB CBS-4
(Buffalo, NY, April 11, 2006) - - The Erie County Comptroller is talking some real money when it comes to cell phone abuse at taxpayer expense. An audit reveals that some of the cell phones are still being used by former county employees! News 4's George Richert reports from the Rath Building. The county's entire cell phone bill amounts to about a quarter-million dollars a year, and according to a just-released audit by the Comptroller, there's still a lot of waste there. Erie County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz said, "Controls are essentially non-existent." Poloncarz blames the county's Department of Information and Support Services for not minding the store when it comes to the 691 county cell phones. Poloncarz said, "This goes through every written page." An audit by his office finds that at least 78 of the county-funded cell phones are still registered to former county employees, like Giambra appointees Jeff Hammond and Dave Pfaff, who were laid off a year ago, but still were carrying their county phones a few weeks ago. Deputy Erie County Executive Bruce Fisher said, "They are going to reimburse the county for their personal usage. That -- in other words, this is something that our people were aware of, and that they have a paper trail on." Poloncarz says some county employees are making personal long-distance calls, and even downloading games and ringtones. Poloncarz said, "At least 84 county employees have two or more wireless devices, with many having both a cell phone and a Blackberry." A Blackberry is an advanced wireless phone capable of sending e-mails. The county pays for 90 of those. Then there's one bill from last December in which someone in the County Executive's office ran up a $615 bill for 4,000 minutes. Poloncarz said, "We cannot determine who was actually using that phone at this time." Fisher said, "It's probably me. I mean, it's probably me communicating with the County Attorney. We had big litigation issues." The Comptroller accuses the Giambra administration of leaking the audit to the press before it was appropriate. Poloncarz said, "The administration chose to leak the document in an attempt to spin the audit and engage in damage control." Fisher said, "I don't know where it came from." The Department of Information and Support Services has 30 days to respond to some of the critical elements of the report. Incidentally, former county employee Jeff Hammond says he has been paying for his cell phone over the past year, even though he was laid off. We'll have more Tuesday night on News 4 at 10 and 11.Complete story available on video. Copyright WIVB-TV, 2006 |
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