Slyke of hand, again

Van Slyke defends Budget Chair who helped mess up town finances

By Will Collette

Sartor is outta here

On July 8, the Charlestown Town Council appointed two applicants to fill the two vacancies on the Budget Commission; returning Commission member, Gregory Plunkett and Michael Marcylenas, who holds a bachelors degree in Actuarial Mathematics.

This has mightily angered long-time Budget Chair Richard Sartor’s patrons, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA PAC). Their leading scribe Bonnita Van Slyke penned another one of her fact-challenged missives praising Sartor to the heavens and condemning the CCA’s archenemies, Charlestown Residents United (CRU), which holds a 4 to 1 majority on the Council.

When Van Slyke was still on the Council (she’s hoping to make a comeback), I wrote a series of “Slyke of Hand” articles taking apart Van Slyke’s numerous false or ridiculous claims, mostly about town finances. Here we go again.

She wrote the broadside reprinted below. The parts in blue are the exact words attributed to her (I don’t know if she actually wrote it). The parts in bold red are my fact-checking and rebuttal. Here we go.

Silencing A Voice Of Experience On The Charlestown Budget Commission

Bonnie Van Slyke 

On July 8, the current Charlestown Town Council majority got rid of a highly qualified and experienced member of the Budget Commission, Dick Sartor. Mr. Sartor had applied to be reappointed, and he was not. This sacking of Mr. Sartor was carried out by a Town Council majority that says institutional knowledge, and qualifications, are of utmost importance in government.

Sartor’s institutional knowledge and experience is that of screwing up. That does’t entitle him to another term. Read on for specifics.

Mr. Sartor was, until July 8, the chair of the Commission. He had served admirably on the Commission for almost 20 years. He has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in public administration. He has over 40 years of experience in town and city management, and he served as Charlestown’s Town Administrator in the early 2000s. He is skilled in budgetary preparation, planning, and evaluation of fiscal proposals.

The Budget Commission advises the Town Council on budgetary matters. The reason the Council’s action is so completely mind boggling is that our town has seen its Town Administrator of 10 years forced out by this Council majority, has had two Town Treasurers leave, and is now on its third auditing firm—all since November 2022.

Van Slyke (CCA photo)

WHOA! What an incredible pack of lies. Town Administrator Mark Stankiewicz was NOT forced out. In fact, he had lined up a new job months BEFORE the 2022 election, but milked months of extra salary from the taxpayers.

Stanky began his new job as Berkley, MA’s town manager on his last day in Charlestown in February 2023. He lasted six weeks.

Van Slyke knows all this but repeats the CCA lie because the truth makes them look like chumps.

Then, over objections from top financial officials in Pawtucket, Stanky got a patronage job as Finance Director from Mayor Donald Grebien even though he admitted he was “no finance guy.” His Charlestown experience certainly showed that.

In Pawtucket, Stankiewicz has helped Mayor Griebien get a close to 50% pay hike and a massive corporate welfare scheme for a planned $137 million soccer stadium heavily subsidized by taxpayers all while Pawtucket’s schools are having trouble paying their bills. Stanky is still a political stooge but on a much larger scale.

And Bonnie misses him.

Incidentally, Stanky took Irina Gorman, one of those failed Town Treasurers mentioned in Bonnie’s letter, with him to fill the same job in Pawtucket. Further on, I deal with the auditors.

Mark Stankiewicz was a terrible town administrator. How terrible? CLICK HERE. Among his worst offenses was covering up the Sartor and CCA “$3 million oopsie” as well as the CCA’s shady land deals.

He kept his job because he did exactly what the CCA told him to do, even if it was unethical or illegal.

Were it not for Dick Sartor’s experience and skill at the helm of the Budget Commission, the town would not have been able to develop the 2024–2025 budget on time this past June. There was no draft budget; there was no audit of the previous year’s finances; and there was little to no institutional knowledge in the Finance Department.

The problems Van Slyke complains about were caused by Sartor and the CCA and the mess they left behind. The CCA, Budget Commission, Charlestown’s long-time auditor and Stankiewicz failed to spot a “$3 million oopsie” – a misallocation of funds that remained unnoticed on the books for almost two years.

Instead of acknowledging the “oopsie,” Sartor and the CCA looked for ways to try to cover it up and explain it away. The scapegoated auditor quit.

The CCA hired another auditing firm, Marcum LLP, just before the new majority took office. Marcum’s audit confirmed the serious problems that had escaped Sartor’s and Stankiewicz’s attention.

That was helpful, but Marcum's over=billing practices were unacceptable. The CRU majority fired them. Shortly after that, the US Securities and Exchange Commission fined Marcum LLP $10,000,000 because, the SEC charged, "Marcum prioritized increased revenue over audit quality.".

In producing this year’s budget, probably his last, Sartor also allegedly committed an unforced error by leading a discussion of raises for the town’s unionized workers.

This violates the terms of their contract – you ONLY discuss terms and conditions within the collective bargaining process. Teamster Local 251 notified the town it will file charges of Unfair Labor Practices (ULPs) with the NLRB. (Agenda Package at page 207). With all of Sartor’s vast knowledge and experience, that’s a rookie mistake.

With Mr. Sartor at the helm of the Budget Commission, Charlestown was the first town in the state to develop a written Fund Balance Policy, which was based on an independent evaluation of the risks the town faces.

Sartor pushed Charlestown to maintain a fund balance (surplus) far in excess of what financial experts consider prudent even for the most generous “rainy day” fund.

Sartor said he wanted to give the town the option to pay cash for major capital projects (roads, bridges, buildings, etc.) instead of issuing low-interest municipal bonds.

Now unless you studied financial management under William Shakespeare (“neither a borrower or lender be” – Polonius in Hamlet), that’s a stupid policy.

Regular people take out mortgages and car loans for household capital costs and don't pay cash. So do normal municipalities. But Sartor’s modus operandi called for a needlessly large surplus that increases taxes.

In good part because of Mr. Sartor’s service, Charlestown is one of the most solvent towns in the state, has been able to achieve a tax rate that is among the lowest in Rhode Island, and has, at the same time, provided excellent government services to taxpayers.

For the 1000^th time, the CCA harps on the tax RATE while ignoring the other key factor in determining what you pay in taxes. That’s the property ASSESSMENT.

Tax rate X property assessment = what you pay in taxes.

Charlestown’s tax rate actually went up under the CCA. It stayed relatively low because it was propped up by rising house prices. Average residents still saw steady increases in taxes, but hey, says the CCA, “how ‘bout that tax rate?”

After voters booted the CCA in 2022, the tax rate fell to $5.74 and is expected to go up by only four cents under the new budget. Now, if the CCA was still in power, they’d take credit for the drop and would ignore the role rocketing assessments played in causing the drop.

Sartor’s only role was to trumpet the CCA’s false narrative that only the tax rate matters. If that’s the case, the CRU’s 2023 tax rate at $5.74 beat the CCA’s peak rate of $10.21 by almost half.

The loss of Mr. Sartor’s knowledge, experience, and institutional knowledge is unfortunate. One can only wonder why the Town Council majority would remove Mr. Sartor’s practiced eye from oversight of the town’s budget.

"Practiced eye?" "Oversight?" how do you spell "oopsie?" Richard Sartor vehemently opposed a proposal by Town Council President Deb Carney to commission an outside forensic audit triggered by the “$3 million oopsie.” Instead, Sartor and Stanky did the review themselves and, of course, found themselves blameless.

One last item that is part of Sartor’s legacy. Under him and the CCA majority, the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC) ranked Charlestown as having the highest administrative costs in the state. Details HERE.

If Sartor was an honorable man, he would have taken his fair share of blame for Charlestown’s financial chaos and $3 million oopsie and resigned. Instead, tapes of Budget Commission meetings show Sartor was much more concerned about protecting his image, minimizing the problems in public perception and assigning blame to others.