NORWICH – How Chenango County decides to spend the approximately $120,000 in revenues collected annually from drunk driving convictions came under intense scrutiny Wednesday at a meeting of the Safety & Rules Committee.
Town of Plymouth Supervisor Jerry L. Kreiner pointed to a number of discrepancies and potential legal violations in the distribution, a process which involves the Chenango County Traffic Safety Board, Stop DWI coordinator and the committee.
Plymouth’s request in August 2008 for $800 per year for a software maintenance program - which they say prevents court cases from falling through the cracks - was denied in November. The request first went before the Traffic Safety Board, where members voted to deny it, then to Stop DWI Coordinator Jan Miles, who presented the same recommendation to Safety & Rules.
Safety & Rules is charged with monitoring Stop DWI’s budget and making resolutions for the use of funds to the county’s Finance Committee. Finance would then have the option of forwarding any decision it makes onto the full Chenango County Board of Supervisors.
Reading from Board of Supervisors’ minutes going back to 1968 when the Traffic Safety Board was created and again in 1981 when the Stop DWI program was established, Kreiner said his findings verify that the board has no authority to legislate the spending of drunk driving revenues. He further told the committee that Stop DWI’s charter mandates that its coordinator not be in law enforcement. The fact that some of the Traffic Safety Board’s 15 members are retired and current police officers represents a conflict of interest, he said.
“They (board members) shouldn’t be voting on requests,” said Kreiner. “It’s this committee’s job to determine where the money is spent, not the Traffic Safety Board’s to hold votes.”
Kreiner also said he was not notified within a reasonable amount of time to appear before the board to present Plymouth’s request (a step in the process that he questioned) and, when he attended a second meeting, was surprised to find that business was conducted at a restaurant.
“These meetings should be held in the County Office Building to make it easier to get information. They should be public,” he said.
The Town of Plymouth has “no vendetta, no sour grapes” against the Traffic Safety Board or Stop DWI program, the supervisor said. He said the software maintenance package requested was eventually purchased, anyway, with town funds. His concern, he said, is that 100 percent of the fines generated by the municipal courts are returned to the county as Stop DWI funds, but those funds are not being distributed back to the towns appropriately.
Kreiner said his research found “many issues that ought to be straightened out,” including board minutes that were difficult to obtain; board minutes that had been revised to omit funding for a computer for the Probation Department; overdue department budgets; $2,000 in Stop DWI revenues that were used for Chenango County Drug Court graduation ceremonies, including catering and engraved watches for graduates; a Norwich Firefighter’s fireworks display paid for with revenues; and reimbursements for a trip to a Drug Court event in Buffalo that the county’s public defender took.
Kreiner read aloud to the committee from the Stop DWI charter that specifies revenues to be used only for law enforcement, prosecution, adjudication and education.
“There are some situations here that really need to be addressed,” he said. “I think it’s horrid that we paid for a public offender to attend an event.”
In answer to Kreiner’s accusations, Committee Chairman Alton B. Doyle said there would be “no way” all 21 townships in the county could annually receive the amount of money ($16,800 a year) to have the maintenance program in question. All but four towns currently have the New York State CourtRoom electronic tracking system.
Supervisor David C. Law, R-Norwich, suggested that the board meet in the County Office Building and copy the committee on minutes like other subcommittees do.
