MILO, Maine — An investigation into $45,000 missing from the Kiwanis Club has been broadened to include $600 discovered missing from an account the club created with the town, Police Chief Damien Pickel said Friday.
The Kiwanis Club created the account with the town to pay for renovations to the kitchen in the town office. The club contributed several checks to it that have been accounted for, but the $600 cash is not there, Pickel said.
“They cannot account for it,” Pickel said Friday of auditors from the firm of James W. Wadman of Ellsworth, which the Board of Selectmen hired to investigate town books.
Selectmen ordered the audit in early April after the sudden resignation of Town Manager Jeff Gahagan for reasons of ill health. Gahagan resigned as the treasurer of the Three Rivers Kiwanis club on April 5, a day before resigning as town manager, in the midst of an investigation by the Piscataquis County Sheriff’s Department, according to Piscataquis County District Attorney R. Christopher Almy.
Pickel said he misspoke Wednesday when he reported that the auditors discovered no problems during their audit. The auditors found that the town’s general accounts were fine, but the Kiwanis and town had set up the kitchen fund as a special account, he said.
The auditors discussed their final report with selectmen at the board’s meeting Tuesday, which Pickel could not attend due to illness, he said.
Selectmen ordered the audit on April 17 despite Gahagan’s lack of access as town manager to the town’s finances. They also hired a firm to conduct a search for a town manager. That search is continuing, officials said.
Interim Town Manager Roger Raymond, the retired town manager of Bucksport, began working for Milo the week of April 24 as a temporary replacement for Gahagan.
The audit provided by Wadman’s firm was forwarded to the sheriff’s office, Pickel said. Sheriff’s Department Lt. Bob Young, who Pickel said is handling the investigation, did not return telephone messages seeking comment Friday.
SO___The Plot Thickens?
Two things come to mind here, No. 1, why is Chief Pickel saying anything about this matter as he is not involved in the investigation, No. 2, this is another good reason why the “Fearless Five” shouldn’t have given Gahagan any severance pay.
Cash? Blame Kiwanis for using cash!
Cash is a fairly common commodity, I would think, when any fund raising is done, like an AUCTION or FOOD WAGON until the cash is safely deposoted in an account, if the funds ever get that far!
Why no mention that the town manager got a severance deal after resigning?
Why in the name of common sense would the subject of “severence pay” even enter into the discussion. Hello! There is an investigation under way to find out who stole all of this money,
so you reward the primary suspect with severence pay! I just don’t get it.
Was Pickel wrong in his statement ? Not really though it might have been a bit too early. His statement to the press was going to come out anyway as it was what he was going to tell the Milo Selectmen. That the ‘kitchen account’ wasn’t covered might be the only ‘opp’s’. No harm and no foul, just bad timing and someone not asking the right question’s. And Lt. Young not making any statement is the right thing to do since he’s still investigating. What’s missing is where is the DA in all of this ? If there’s anything to be asked, the DA is the one to be asked since they’re the one’s that are gonna have to make the final decision, not the Selectmen since the issue is one of public fund’s, no matter how the ‘kitchen account’ is labeled.
You know, the town gets what they paid for, little to nothing, for hiring who they did.
Gahagan rsigns for reasons of “Ill Health”
Pickel can’t address the selectmen because he was “Ill”
I can relate to all of that. The whole disgrace makes me sick too!!
Pickle?