Scranton not pursuing gas card reimbursement from former fire chief
Oct. 13—Scranton is not pursuing the money an auditor said former Fire Chief Pat DeSarno should reimburse the city for personal use of his taxpayer-funded gas credit card.
Certified public accountant Arthur Moretti — whose firm the city hired in 2019 to review Scranton's gas card system and DeSarno's gas card use following extensive reporting by The Times-Tribune — found DeSarno largely lacked proper documentation to justify many fuel charges he claimed were for business. Moretti concluded in an early 2020 report that DeSarno should reimburse the city $5,373.61.
DeSarno, who resigned Jan. 3, 2020, never did, city officials said. The city is not pursuing reimbursement, Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti said in a statement.
There are a variety of issues involved in trying to determine an exact amount the city could reasonably demand from DeSarno after his departure, which occurred prior to the current administration, according to the statement. It also notes a lack of documentation and "the legal time and costs involved in trying to collect funds based on poor documentation."
Given all that, "the recommendation from our labor counsel was to not pursue funds related to the gas usage issue as it would be unlikely to be worth the legal fees and would not ultimately favor the taxpayers," the statement reads.
Moretti told city council in April 2020 that the former gas card system was a "dumpster fire" and highlighted administrative failures to provide oversight during felonious former Mayor Bill Courtright's tenure.
A lack of internal controls, the fact that employees often shared PINs and other troublesome realities made it hard to hold individuals responsible for instances of gas card abuse Moretti was confident occurred, he said at the time.
Cognetti, who took office days after DeSarno resigned, noted in her recent statement that officials aimed their focus at implementing controls to prevent future gas card abuses. They included hiring a fleet manager to oversee city vehicle usage, adopting vehicle use and gas card policies, conducting monthly reviews and reconciliation of gas card charges by department and doing quarterly audits between the finance and human resources offices to ensure cards are issued only to current employees who need them.
The best thing to come out of the gas card scandal was a more transparent and accountable system, city council President Kyle Donahue said Thursday.
He understands why people may want the city to pursue reimbursement from DeSarno on principle, but said Scranton shouldn't "spend resources that exceed what the return might be."
Moretti's audit followed a 2019 Times-Tribune investigation of gas card billing records that exposed a system ripe for abuse and lacking critical internal controls to safeguard taxpayers' money.
The newspaper reported that DeSarno got into a fender bender in a city-owned SUV while vacationing at the Jersey Shore on July 18, 2019, and used his gas card to fuel up at a turnpike station near Allentown that same day.
Amid the newspaper's scrutiny, former Mayor Wayne Evans, who briefly succeeded Courtright, instructed DeSarno to conduct a self-audit of his gas card use and reimburse the city. DeSarno ultimately determined he owed taxpayers $559.19 for personal gas card use over about 5 1/2 years, though Moretti later called the self-audit insufficient and incomplete.
Evans said Thursday his understanding was that DeSarno reimbursed the $559.19. Cognetti said, to her knowledge, he had not.
City Controller John Murray said he has no records showing any reimbursement.
Efforts to reach DeSarno were unsuccessful.
The Times-Tribune did another investigation of city gas card use in the fall of 2020, the first year of Cognetti's tenure, that found city gas card use plummeted in the year following the newspaper's initial gas card probe.
Contact the writer: jhorvath@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9141; @jhorvathTT on Twitter.
