Submitted by Jeff Ramer, Riverside
The dysfunction of a candidate in his last Public job is some reflection upon his competence to perform the next Public job to which he aspires. Thus, as Mr. Laudonia puts himself forward as a candidate to serve as our Representative for the 151 st State Assembly District, consider his performance as our previous Town Tax Collector.
1. FAILURE TO TIMELY DEPOSIT TAX RECEIPTS
Of the roughly $380 million of real estate tax revenues then being collected annually by Town, much of it was paid using the mailing envelope provided by the Town, which went to a preaddressed Post Office box, where it was automatically processed and deposited by our outside vendor, Quality Data Systems. However, a fair proportion, about $180 million in collections, was paid in that year by people who came into the Tax Office and paid at the Tax Collector window or who mailed their check in an envelope that they chose to address to 101 Field Point Road, the Greenwich Town Hall. Those checks were handled by the Tax Collector.
As recorded in the Minutes and papers of the September 19, 2019 meeting of the Board of Estimate, the Comptroller reported to the Board that there may have been delays in the deposit of taxes being
paid through the Tax Collector’s Office. Connecticut statute requires the deposit of tax receipts no less frequently than weekly. Town
policy requires the daily deposit of all sums over $500.
What were the facts?
The payment of taxes, as you know, allows a month of grace, after which interest is charged at a hefty eighteen percent. So taxes due on July 1 tend to be paid in July, to avoid the interest that starts to accrue in August.
Not surprisingly, the tax collections in July are usually heavy, and in August much lighter. The Town Treasurer had reported to the Comptroller, however, that the bank statements were suggesting that the Tax Collector was making deposits in August in amounts that in prior years had been indicative of deposits normally being made in July. For example, the deposits for the second half of August in that year were $18 million, compared to only $3.7 million for the same period in the year prior. Something seemed wrong.
The Town Treasurer further reported to the Comptroller that she, on a random basis, obtained copies of the front and back of a small number of checks deposited by the Tax Collector’s Office. A comparison was made of the date of deposit stamped on the back of. the check to the date of the check written on the front. Admittedly, the date on the front may be a poor indicator of the date on which the check was actually handed to the Collector.
But the random sampling suggested a lag of five or six weeks between the date on the front and the date of deposit. Specifically, the Treasurer reported that about $1.95M in checks were deposited on August 25th , and the two of the checks randomly selected by her were dated July 11th and July 19th, suggesting the delay of five or six weeks. On September 1st , about $318k in checks were deposited, and the two randomly selected checks were dated July 17th and July 19th , again a five or six week delay. This was hardly a broad data sampling, but the appearance was concerning and worthy of inquiry.
The Tax Collector was asked to comment and he declined. Quite apart from the possible breach of State statute and Town policy, if accurate, such a delay would have been an interest loss to the Town of perhaps $80,000, even at the exceedingly low savings account interest rates at that time.
2. OVERSPENDING HIS BUDGET.
The Minutes also show that on February 8, 2017, the Town Budget Director disclosed to a meeting of the Budget Committee of the Board of Estimate that the Tax Collector had expended $267,258 of the $398,121 annual salaries budgeted for the whole year (including his own salary), and at that rate would run out of salary funds by mid-May, with the all-important July tax bills still to be prepared and issued.
The Minutes of that meeting quote the mildly astonishing reply of the Tax Collector to the Board of Estimate: “The response of the Tax Collector was that on the advice of his legal counsel, he was unwilling to discuss his proposed handling of the Budget shortfall in salaries in the current fiscal year.”
3. FAILURE TO CORRECT TAX BILLS.
Occasional errors do occur in taxes due from taxpayers, and are corrected, whether by informal correction of errors with the Assessor, or by the Board of Assessment Appeals, or by Court stipulations, or by final Court order after trial. In each of these events, the procedure is that Town Assessor issues a “Certificate of Correction”, a copy of which goes to the Tax Collector, who is then charged with making a prompt correction to the tax bill.
It appeared that his implementation of these corrections stopped in March of that year and were delayed, as the Tax Collector laid off employees to accommodate his earlier overspending and exhaustion of the salary funds available to his Department.
4. FAILURE TO CORRECT NSF CHECKS AND CREDIT CARD REVERSALS
During the same period, the Town had received approximately $377k in checks on which payment had been refused for insufficient funds. Similarly, the Town experienced approximately $61k in charge backs on which the taxes initially had been paid by credit card and then reversed. The job of the Tax Collector is to promptly correct for these nonpayments, and it appeared from the Comptroller’s report that here too, the corrections were not made starting in March, as the Tax Collector laid off people to accommodate to the premature exhaustion of his salaries Budget.
5. FAILURE TO PERFORM EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE REVIEWS.
Each department of the Town is obliged to prepare and submit annual employee performance reviews to the Human Relations Department of the Town. Of the twenty-five departments, only one failed to timely submit its report that year. The Tax Collector.
6. FAILURE TO ENFORCE TAXES.
Because unpaid taxes accumulate interest to the Town at a hefty 18% and because the Town tax lien on property enjoys a fairly high priority, being paid ahead of most other creditors, Tax Collectors often initially can be relaxed about enforcement of unpaid taxes. But a statute awaits that wipes out the tax debt, if not collected within fifteen years. Surely, a Tax Collector has an obligation to act on accounts approaching the fifteen years, either bringing enforcement actions or getting Town approval for the write-off of valueless accounts.
Mr. Laudonia did not run for re-election as Tax Collector in 2019. I don’t know whether he chose not to run or whether his Party preferred not to run him. As reflected in the Minutes, on March 9, 2022, the Audit Committee of the Board of Estimate inquired of his successor regarding longstanding unpaid tax accounts, and learned that there were at least nine accounts from 2006 and earlier on which Mr. Laudonia had neither brought enforcement nor sought authority from the Town to write off.
SUMMARY
The disappointing job performance of a candidate at his last Public
responsibility arguably is a reflection of what the Public should expect from him on a future assignment. The things that Mr. Laudonia did and did not do as Tax Collector should inform the Public as to his competence to serve as our Representative from the 151 st Connecticut State Assembly District.
I thought that you might want to know some of these facts.
Jeff Ramer
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