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This is incredible. This chump has the nerve to make these comments when in fact he was the principal architect that has brought this city to its knees. Any objective person can look around them and see the urban decay and blight which has proliferated under the watch of Scott Avedisian. Years of special interest favors to keep control of the only job he ever had, lands us (the taxpayer) footing the bill for all of his corruption.
Years of benefits that were handed out like candy on Halloween without actuarial studies. Public lies, falsified fiscal notes, and allowing corruption to fester within several departments in this city. All to get re-elected. So now he escapes with his golden parachute just before the finances of this city come crumbling down. Yet much like Sergeant Shultz, he knows nothing.
Well here's something to chew on.
On Feb.19th the Warwick City Council engaged the CPA/CFE firm YKSM to perform particular studies on the finances of the Warwick Fire Department, particularly, issues surrounding unused sick time and unused vacation time. It was overwhelmingly evident that the department had manipulated the contract language resulting in over payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I personally was tasked by the council to meet with the firm and supply them with the documents that I had procured during over 2 years of requests.
On July 17th 2018 I reviewed the hand written "record of sick time sheets" and compiled the information as to the over payments of 2017. I completed the review and emailed the data to COS Bill Depasquale. On July 19th at 9:30am I was walking into a meeting with YKSM off of Branch Ave in Providence. My phone rang and it was Bill Depasquale telling me that he had received my data and that upon review my data was accurate. He stated to me "Rob, its worse than what you think". I replied, "Yeah, I know, now you gotta go all the way back to 2012". He replied, "That's not what I mean". He said, "you have to understand that before the WFD comes to negotiations with a request, they have already worked out how to manipulate it". He continued and said "Everyone knew about the scheme". I said, "What do you mean everyone knew". He went on to state that he was in the room as interim COS when the department chief, and the union president came before Avedisian and Ruggiero and explained in detail how they could manipulate the numbers to receive a 100% payout on the unused sick time. He went on to say that he (Depasquale) objected to the scheme and Avedisian removed him from the meeting and busted him back into the planning department.
Everyone knew. Avedisian condoned it, Ruggerio signed the deal on WFD lettterhead, and Zymslinski authored a bogus fiscal note. It was a great scheme until someone that knew how to add uncovered it.
The fact that all of these people knew for 5 years that the department was stealing from us and did nothing about it speaks volumes. But look back now, every one of the conspirators has profited and at the expense of the taxpayer. Solomon knew about the scheme in April of 2016, yet did nothing. Avedisian and all parties exited rapidly out the back door with no accountability, and now we are left with this mess.
Now Depasquale is the voice of Solomon trumpeting what a great deal this new fire contract is and is pushing it upon the taxpayers without proper fiscal vetting. We should believe him? For 5 years he knew that the unused sick time scheme was a secret side deal, yet for political reasons, and to protect his boss Scotty, he kept his mouth shut.
Scott Avedisian, you should be ashamed of yourself, and the coward that you are to this date refused to answer questions. Thanks for destroying Warwick. Hope your $75000 pension was worth the destruction of a community.
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