Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - "I'm in astonishment by the comments City Comptroller Barbara Miller-WIlliams made last night to the Buffalo News." Fillmore District Council Member Mitch Nowakowski joined WBEN Thursday to discuss the need for an audit of City of Buffalo employees on paid leave.
The Common Council this week passed Nowakowski's resolution calling
for the comptroller's office to conduct an audit to determine how many city
employees are on paid leave and why.
It was recently learned that the city has paid more than $600,000 to a city clerk on paid administrative leave for over seven years.
Miller-Williams told The News, she is going to do an investigation of the incident, and not an audit.
"She made a statement, saying her department is already doing audits, and they can't stop what they're doing to do this," said Nowakowski, who called it "unacceptable."
"We need to figure out what's going on here. If this happened here, what may have happened elsewhere? We're paying people to stay home, and it's wrong."
The council member said it seemed like Miller-Williams was throwing the audit request to the curb.
He has asked that the Comptroller appear at next Tuesday's Civil Service Committee meeting. She has not confirmed whether she will appear.
It's not stopping Nowakowski from pursuing an audit.
"We're going to have to appeal to the New York State Comptroller to get independent auditors to come and do this," he added.
$600,000, he said, would go a long way in his district to fix up parks and infrastructure.
What is the difference between an investigation and an audit? "An audit would entail how many people in the city are on administrative leave, for how long, and at what cost to the taxpayers. It's more of a totality of the problem. An investigation is a very narrow approach to one incident."
Is Miller-Williams giving the Council the brush-off?
"It seems like she is not taking this seriously. At times," Nowakowski said, "I'm feeling frustrated because I feel like I'm the only adult in the room. We need to make sure we are good stewards, protecting taxpayer dollars and that people are not getting checks for sitting at home, when they can be working."
