We have been told by several sources now that the Collegeville Borough Manager, Jeff Thompson (left) has not been complying with the new right-to know law (see here) that went into effect January 1, 2009. In fact, we were forwarded evidence that not only has he not complied with the law but he is being defiant and has decided to not reply to the repeated follow-ups by some of the requestors. Well, that is a Denial of access and the court may impose a civil penalty of not more than $1,500 (per incident) if an agency denied access to a public record in bad faith. Just as an FYI the requestor had requested the financial disclosures for Terrie Stagliano. I wonder if Ms. Stagliano, as President of Council, gave the directive NOT to release those statements? Nah, she always complies with the law (cough, cough)!Now this would appear not to be a very smart thing to do but we obviously are not talking about the sharpest tool in the shed here. Mr. Thompson got his willy twisted pretty good when Trappe Borough, in September 2006, sent a letter to Collegeville notifying them that they has shorted the CTJPW employee's pension fund to the tune of $45,000.00.
On October 4, 2006, Collegeville announced at their regulary scheduled meeting the following:
Collegeville Borough recently received a letter from Trappe Borough’s Solicitor requesting that Collegeville Borough pay $45,000 to the Joint Public Works employee’s pension fund. If the payment was not authorized at the October Council meeting Trappe Borough will explore litigation to recover the $45,000.
For the public’s information, the employees of Public Works are members of Collegeville Borough’s pension plan which is the PA Municipal Retirement System. This arrangement developed about 20 years ago because the Joint Public Works Committee was not a state recognized legal entity, thus they could not be part of PMRS and Trappe Borough did not have a pension plan. Collegeville Borough agreed to allow Public Works employees in the Borough’s PMRS plan. So as far as the state is concerned, Public Works employees are employees of Collegeville Borough. Financial aid from the state is received each year for the purposes of funding municipal pension plans. The financial allocation is determined by the number of employees and their salaries. The state aid received is distributed between Collegeville’s Police Pension Fund and PMRS. Recently, due to state legislation, obligations to the Borough’s pension funds have increased dramatically and the yearly allocation of state aid has not been adequate to satisfy both pension funds. The state aid received was used to satisfy the Police Pension fund, which is permitted under state law. State law allows the municipality to distribute state aid as it sees fit. The only requirement is that the state aid be deposited into a pension plan.
Collegeville Borough is currently seeking additional information from PMRS before making any decisions.
Well, after several months (early 2007) Mr. Thompson appeared at a Trappe Borough Council meeting and announced (and told the truth) that that Collegeville had indeed misappropriated monies that belonged to the workers pension at CTJPW and Collegeville kept for the police pension. He then proceeded to tell Trappe that Collegeville would reimburse the money by the end of the year. Trappe insisted that the money be paid back immediately or Collegeville would need to pay interest. So guess what - Collegeville then announced at a later Trappe Borough Council meeting that they had not taken any money and what they did was right and legal.
Trappe and their solicitors disagreed and filed suit against Collegeville and Lord knows where that stands? I am fairly certain that Fred Schuetz and the 'Trusted Team' have swept it under the carpet. They are too busy spending ridiculous amounts of money at Rambo Park handing money to Borough Engineer John Sartor (also a big contributor to their campaign) and the employees down at the CTJPW (who also donated to their campaign). We will have more on the dictatorship of Fred Schuetz and the 'Trusted Team' along with what appears to be the 'Gestapo' like ways of Borough Manager Tommy Ryan. More on this in the near future.
