Rec department budget ironed out despite confusion, errors

AMENIA — Despite moments of confusion from members of the Town Board and Recreation Department Chairman Tom Werner, the kinks were ironed out of the rec department’s budget Monday night.

Town Supervisor Janet Reagon admitted several lines in the department’s budget were not properly coded.

"The line personnel services, which we budgeted $39,000, has come to $32,357 for all the employees for the summer recreation program," Reagon said. "It should not have been there, but that’s where it was. It was coded in backwards. What was down under special [recreation] facilities should not have been, $10,243.50. That was what we paid our maintenance director and our recreation maintenance mechanic."

Councilman Wayne Euvrard said the town needed to be careful with how the budget numbers are organized.

"Somehow there needs to be more care in these line items," Euvrard said. "The way things are broken down and when you put things on the wrong lines on top of it, it’s a real wreck. You have three people in the [bookkeeping] office, they should be able to figure this out."

Werner said he was also not happy with the organization in the budget.

"When you are going to check this budget, you can’t do it with numbers," Werner said. "You have got to have receipts match those numbers. And you want it audited correctly, you need to go step by step. We will do it for you if you furnish us the information."

Recreation Director Ken Pomeisl was questioned on why $2,500 was budgeted for uniforms in the Connie Mack baseball league when all of the participants are required to purchase their own.

"I disagree with that listing," Pomeisl said, explaining that the listing of uniforms on that budget line was mislabeled. It was not being used to pay for uniforms, according to Pomeisl, but rather for umpires and insurance. Uniforms were paid for by the players themselves.

"Take out the uniforms and add everything else, including umpires and insurance. The main thing is umpires."

After about an hour and a half of confusion, debates and clarifications, the recreation budget was declared to be in place by Reagon.

"I’m sorry that I have been such a pain in the butt about this," Werner said to the board before he left the meeting.