The Slatington Borough Council discussed a personnel issue during its public meeting on March 10, which is usually done in an executive session. They did not use names, but referred to the positions of the two former employees in the office of three employees.

Slatington’s new business manager Roy Hambrecht presented the report to council from Transcend Finance LLC in Allentown that detailed the tasks it said were not completed by the former staff. The company was hired by the borough in May 2024 to help the borough office complete annual audits. The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development requires all municipalities to provide information annually for an independent audit. The completed audits are available for public review.

Transcend is a company created by Steve Carr and Scott Boehert in 2022, according to LinkedIn. Carr submitted the report to the borough.

Hambrecht said Transend’s bill will total about $244,000 by the time it is finished in August.

“It’s a quarter of a million dollars of hiring this firm and correct all the missteps prior,” Hambrecht said.

The borough has paid some of Transcend’s bill.

“This $142,000 of actual spend in 2024 obviously was not budgeted for. So far to date this year, $29,000 has been spent,” Hambrecht said.

Hambrecht stepped into the borough manager’s position in mid-November, after Dan Stevens retired in September. Hambrecht left a chief administrative officer position with the state of New Jersey. Assistant treasurer Colleen Bresnak, whose work was referenced in the report, also left in September.

Roadwork funds

During the meeting, Hambrecht said, “We have $118,654 budgeted for this year for liquid fuels, but we received $121,850. And the reason why is because we expect that $118,654, but the $121,850 is 2023’s number. And we’re expecting another $120,000 or so for ’24. And then we’ll also be getting $118,000. So, in reality, we’ll be getting about $360,000 instead of the $118,000. And that’s because we finally submitted the correct reporting for DOT (Department of Transportation) for liquid fuels, and we’ll be getting all three in the arrears this year. The silver lining is that we’ll have a little bit extra money, so we can use that smartly to address some of the road conditions, but obviously the ball was dropped in past years.”

A resident asked him why the paperwork hadn’t been filed. Hambrecht replied, “I don’t know what the rationale was for them not applying. I don’t know if it was complacency or just not knowing how to do it. I don’t know.”

Roads conditions have been a topic of complaint by residents. Funds from the state Liquid Fuels Tax are used by municipalities for construction, reconstruction, repair and maintenance of roads and infrastructure.

Former council member Thomas Bartholomew, whose term ended on Dec. 31, 2023, said things have to be done before roads can be paved, such as fixing stormwater drains and replacing water lines in the roads.

“We put money in the budget for 2024 to service a loan to pave roads,” he said.

Bartholomew said he doesn’t know why the paving didn’t get done, but he thinks that maybe the borough needed the money to pay for Transcend.

As for getting funds for various projects, Bartholomew said Stevens was able to get more than $1 million in grant money during his time as a council member and then as borough manager. Some of those projects included:

• 2017 — $395,185 Small Water and Sewer grant for work at the wastewater treatment plant.

• 2019 — $78,540 in federal grant money to replace water lines along Franklin Street and install a new water line on Fifth Street.

• 2021 — $105,488 grant for repair of the Slate Heritage Trail.

• 2023 — $87,399 Community Development Block Grant for reconstruction projects on North Street and Fifth Street.

• 2023 — $235,957 grant from the Pennsylvania Small Water and Sewer Program, which received the money through the COVID-19 American Rescue Plan Act for a water main and service line replacement project on Maple Springs Drive.

Overtime

Another issue brought up at the council meeting was the assistant treasurer’s overtime and other work that had not been done. Hambrecht said the report from Transcend found that 2,605 journal entries were not put into the borough’s financial accounting software over a period of 2.5 years.

“If you look at 2023, she gets close to doubling her salary with overtime,” Hambrecht said. “The problem here is that although this overtime was authorized to ‘get caught up’ clearly that wasn’t happening based on the information I just shared with you from Mr. Carr.”

Stevens said in an interview, “I’m responding because they brought this up in a public meeting.”

Stevens said the overtime for Bresnak was in the budget every year for five years. The council knew it was overtime, discussed whether to give her overtime or hire another staff person, and approved the budget every year.

“No one ever voted against it,” Stevens said. “It was more cost effective to pay her overtime, than to hire another person.”

Bartholomew agreed.

“Colleen was a great bargain. She was doing the work of two people,” he said. “Colleen was doing a great job. I thought she was a good employee.”

Bartholomew said his responsibility as council president was to verify Stevens hours and work, and check Stevens verification of Bresnak’s work.

“I knew she kept extensive records,” Bartholomew said. “She outlined what she did every day on her time sheets.”

According to Bresnak’s W-2 forms, which she released to Stevens for this interview, this is what she was paid and what was budgeted, both included the overtime.

• 2020 — She received $50,447; borough budgeted $52,270.

• 2021 — She received $54,622; borough budget $51,400.

• 2022 — Received $60,909; borough budgeted $59,550 ($58,300 in pay plus $1,250 onetime payment given to all borough employees — except Stevens — because wages were frozen the prior year due to COVID-19).

• 2023 — Received $76,918; borough budgeted $61,080.

• 2024 — Received $50,469; borough budgeted $79,960.

In all, Bresnak received $5,413 more in pay than was listed in the budget for her.

Stevens said the large increase in pay in 2023 was due to an unexpected five-year pension audit that was required by the state. Getting the documentation together while maintaining regular responsibilities required the overtime.

“We had to answer endless lists of questions and provide dozens of documents,” Stevens said. “This required a huge amount of time. You can’t put them off.”

Bartholomew said, “It ate up a lot of time for a small municipal office.”

(Patricia Ingles assisted with this report.)