Ethics board says former Evans supervisor owes $23K

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Mary Hosler, Erie County’s chief auditor, should be fined $23,000 for payments she took but was not entitled to while serving as Evans town supervisor, the town’s Ethics Committee concluded last week.

The five-member panel  agreed with a recent audit by the state comptroller’s office that found Hosler improperly took compensation for opting out of the town’s health insurance coverage. 

(Investigative Post wrote about  the audit last month.)

Elected officials were not entitled to such opt-out payments at the time Hosler sought the money, the ethics board concluded. On top of that, Hosler was covered by the town’s health insurance through her husband, a town employee, during the four years for which she took opt-out payments.

As a result, the Ethics Committee recommended the town board make Hosler repay the town $6,000. 

The Ethics Committee also faulted Hosler for twice casting the tie-breaking vote appointing herself the town’s budget director, a position that comes with a $15,000 stipend. The town’s ethics code holds Hosler should have recused herself from voting on a matter that benefitted her financially, the committee found. Without her vote, Hosler’s appointment as budget director in 2021 and 2023 would have failed.

So the ethics board recommended the town board make Hosler repay the entire stipend she received for 2021, as well as a pro-rated sum for the first two months of 2023. Hosler resigned the town supervisor’s office in February of that year to become Erie County deputy comptroller for audit.

She did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

In total, the ethics committee recommended the town board seek retribution from Hosler totaling $23,054.79. 

All five members of the town Ethics Committee were appointed while Hosler was town supervisor. They were unanimous in adopting the report and its recommendations.

The committee’s report was shared with town board members last Friday, but the committee reached its conclusions at a meeting Wednesday, just hours before the town board’s regular biweekly meeting.

In that meeting, Town Supervisor Ray Ashton read aloud key points from the state comptroller’s audit, which described generally sloppy payroll practices as well as Hosler’s improper health insurance opt-out payments. Ashton, in a Sep. 16 letter to the state comptroller, accepted and agreed with the audit’s findings.

He was less agreeable during discussion that followed his reading of the audit. 

An Evans resident asked what the board was going to do to claw back money that “was given to the wrong people” or “wasn’t documented” properly.

“That’s our money,” she said.

“It doesn’t mean that,” Ashton replied, insisting the audit identified poor practices, not wrongdoing. “It doesn’t mean it wasn’t their money.”

He also argued the comptroller’s audit didn’t conclude the payments to Hosler were wrong, so much as it concluded that other board members should have been eligible for the same payments.

“I think the optics are bad, but I don’t think there’s anything illegal here,” Ashton said. 

The Ethics Committee can’t implement its recommendation to retrieve the money from Hosler. The town board has to do that.

Geoff Kelly