Baseless Attacks Against Town Staff Need To Stop

The following letter was submitted to local newspapers and is shared with us here by the author Bonnie Van Slyke. Bonnie Van Slyke was a member of the Charlestown Town Council for the past 8 years.

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At the Charlestown Town Council meeting on December 12, town employees were again attacked for being paid for work they had performed—the same attack that had been pursued a month earlier by a resident, Stephen Hoff.

At the end the 2021-2022 fiscal year, Charlestown’s employees received paychecks for their work during the previous two weeks. There was nothing unusual in their being paid for this work because town employees are paid every two weeks, like clockwork.

There was something unusual in fiscal year 2021, however. There was an exceptionally rare, additional pay period in the year. Town employees were paid for their work during this time; they were not paid for 9 days more than they had worked, contrary to Mr. Hoff’s claim.

In making his allegations, Mr. Hoff did not mention the extra pay period, and he also did not mention the fact that employees had been paid for their work during that time. Instead, he alleged, nonsensically, that there was a mysterious “silent liability” that had been hidden from everyone for 10 years, that could no longer be hidden, and that needed to be paid to these town employees in their paychecks in June of 2022.

Mr. Hoff insisted that his allegations should be accepted because he is a CPA in Connecticut. However, in data maintained by the state of Connecticut, there is no record that Mr. Hoff is a CPA in the state.

In an emailed response to my inquiry, the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection, State Board of Accountancy, replied on December 8, 2022, “Our records indicate that he holds a CPOA certificate with this Department. He is not registered nor is he licensed as a CPA.” Additional information sent shows no evidence that Mr. Hoff had been licensed as a CPA in Connecticut in the past.

As a matter of record, Mr. Hoff’s credentials were mentioned publicly as a measure of his credibility at the Town Council meeting on December 12. To be fair, the Connecticut database may have an error. If that is the case, I expect Mr. Hoff can show evidence of his CPA license.

Regardless of whether Mr. Hoff is or is not a CPA, he omitted key facts and showed no credible evidence to support his assertion that town employees have systematically been paid a great deal more than they should have been paid.

This and other unfounded allegations made by Mr. Hoff are unwarranted. They unfairly smear the reputation of Charlestown’s Town Administrator whose performance has been judged by the Town Council for the last nine years to be superior in all areas of responsibility. They also smear the reputations of town employees who have been committed, even during the global pandemic, to providing top-quality services to the people who call Charlestown home—the direct result of the leadership of our Town Administrator and the Town Council.

 

 

 

You can learn more about Bonnie at her profile page.