Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele is criticizing former Mayor Dannel Malloy for a lack of management control after three city employees were charged with stealing more than $400,000 from the city of Stamford.
Employees in three different departments have been arrested this year in alleged embezzlement cases that were uncovered by the new mayor who took office in December. Two of the three workers had been named "employee of the month'' during the Malloy years, and one of them was photographed with Malloy as they smiled during the employee of the month ceremony in June 2005. The employee, Fred Manfredonia, was fired this year amid the controversy.
"The question is: who was watching the store when all of this was going on?'' asked Fedele, a Stamford resident for the past 50 years and a Republican candidate for governor. "What management controls were in place and who was watching when all this took place?''
Fedele is running in the Republican primary on August 10, while Malloy is running in the Democratic gubernatorial primary on the same day against Greenwich cable TV entrepreneur Ned Lamont. Lamont declined to comment on the controversy.
Fedele said that Malloy, as mayor for 14 years, needed to hire the best supervisors for important financial positions in order to avoid the misuse of taxpayers' money.
"When you're running government, you have to have all your controls in place to make sure these things aren't going on,'' Fedele said. "It's part of making sure that you have the right people in place that are overseeing what is going on in government and having the accountability and transparency that folks are looking for.''
Malloy emphasized that he is no longer the mayor and does not have additional details on the arrests beyond what he reads in the newspaper.
"Obviously, you do your best to set up systems'' of financial controls, Malloy said Friday. "The city's books are audited on a regular basis. Two of those individuals were caught very quickly, and one was not. It's hard to protect people from dishonesty. ... You have systems. No system is foolproof.''
"Let's be fair. None of these people were direct reports to me,'' Malloy said. "He's the lieutenant governor of an administration that has had its problems. ... The governor was part of an administration that was hiding money in the backyard.''
City officials have called for forensic audits of the city's financial controls since the arrests came to light, and they have hired a new auditing firm. In addition, they created a hotline to handle calls about financial irregularities. Stamford's police chief has contacted the FBI, U.S. Attorney, and chief state's attorney to investigate the cases because public money is involved.
Fedele raised the issue during a broader discussion about the gubernatorial campaign, his business career, and his views of his hometown of Stamford.