Prior to modifications recently employed by Mayor Gallo the compilation of payroll records for the City Fire Department was rather rudimentary. Thus, our investigation was complicated by a lack of payroll documents and a lack of checks and controls in the compiling of said documents. These are exactly the points raised by Comptroller DiNapoli’s report.
In 2009 the City renegotiated the Chief’s contract, in part, to allow the payment of up to 80 hours of overtime payments per annum. Prior to this contract there was no provision for the Chief to receive overtime payments. In essence, the new contract allowed for the possibility of the Chief to work in excess of 40 hours per week and receive overtime for same. If the Chief worked in excess of 80 hours per annum overtime he would not be able to receive payment for same. In that event, he could exchange that additional comp time, i.e. greater than 80 hours per annum, for vacation time.
The contract also provided that the Chief could have up to 37 days paid vacation per annum. If he didn’t take the full allotment of vacation time, he could be compensated for it. The vacation buyback was limited to receiving compensation for no more than 30 vacation days per year.
In 2011, prior to the State Comptroller’s audit, the City Comptroller observed what he felt were irregularities concerning the time sheets submitted by Mr. Salzmann. He explained his concerns to the Chief and asked him to review the time logs that he had previously submitted and, if need be, to correct them. In essence, the City Comptroller believed that the Chief had failed to properly account for the payout of seven vacation days which, in effect, would have caused the City to overpay him for those seven days.
Our investigation confirmed that the City Comptroller was correct in his findings.
Instead of simply acknowledging the errors in the time log he had submitted, we believe Chief Salzmann altered and resubmitted his vacation accrual log for 2011. The resubmitted log acknowledged the City Comptroller’s findings regarding the payout for seven days vacation which he had taken but not included on his previously submitted form. However,we believe he also altered his records by “discovering” that he had claimed seven vacation days when he was not actually on vacation and now sought to be compensated for the previously claimed vacation days. In short, the resubmitted payment logs netted out to zero.
We have reviewed both the State Comptroller’s findings and the City Comptroller’s findings. We have also met with former Chief Salzmann who offered a series of explanations for the two auditors’ findings. Many of Mr. Salzmann’s explanations, we believe, are plausible and remove much of this inquiry away from a criminal prosecution. For instance, Chief Salzmann claims, and we have confirmed, that the former Mayor had expressly authorized the Chief to not claim some vacation days while the Chief was admittedly on vacation, because, although not in the City, he was called upon to work on Fire Chief matters. A good example of this was in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Irene.
The matter of the filing of false payroll records, however, is in my view criminal in nature and I have directed my investigator to file criminal charges against Mr. Salzmann for four counts of Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the Second Degree.
I compliment Mayor Gallo for his discovery of this matter and the determined manner in which he has brought fresh transparency and accountability to city government.
