Mismanagement, old computers and lack of controls have lead to some financial issues in the Erie County Probation Department, according to Comptroller Mark Poloncarz. Some of these problems date back to the 1990's.
Comptroller Mark Poloncarz says, "It was a mess there."
One of the biggest problems, the restitution fund.
Probation takes money in through it's cashiers office. The money is paid by people on probation and it's supposed to be paid out to victims of crimes.
But Poloncarz says proper records weren't kept and money wasn't paid out.
Poloncarz says, "They were holding upwards of $750,000 thousand dollars, not paying victims...but over $337,000 thousand was unidentifiable. We don't know who it was owed to."
These problems all started before Peter Vito took over. He has been overseeing the debarment for the last few months. He saw an issue with this restitution account and he says he called in the Comptroller.
Peter Vito says, "The main problem quite frankly was the fact that the cashier's office is using a DOS based system dating back into the 1980's."
The ancient computers make it tough to track money coming in or going out. Data needs to be input up to 5 times.
New computers and software are already on the way, thanks to an efficiency grant from the control board. Vito says they corrected the problem as soon as they figured out there was one.
"Checks are going out on a more frequent basis, accounts are being credited, we've had our folks working overtime whenever possible," he tells us.
But, he says he needs more staff to get things done, including a supervisor in the cashier's office. It was one of the new positions requested in the 2009 budget proposed to the legislature.
"That was denied," Vito says.
Other audits from 1995, 1998, and 2000 also found problems with the restitution accounts. Nothing was ever done.
Vito insists this time it's different, and corrective action has already been taken.
