While there are still many questions about the current financial standing of the Mamaroneck Public Library, the Board President, Ellen Freeman told us Tuesday that the community will get answers by the end of next month.
Two employees of the Mamaroneck Public Library have resigned in the wake of the discovery of alleged significant misappropriation of funds by someone on the inside, first reported by the Loop.
Mary Soto, a long time library employee who held the position of Business Manager, and volunteer treasurer Clayton Otto, resigned last month. Freeman would not comment to the Loop about either, and neither responded to inquiries from theLoop.
“We are going to lay it out to the community, in an honest way, and tell them the story of what happened and we will be happy to do that after we have everything on our fingertips and we know exactly what has happened,” said Freeman.
Mamaroneck Police say they received a complaint from the library in March about a matter of possible financial impropriety, and an investigation was launched into “financial irregularities” and “potential misappropriation.”
“We have every intention of keeping the doors open and we are investigating various options for funding the library. I am working with a variety of people in order to secure that. Our main concern is always our employees, the people who work at the library, and to that end we want to make sure that we’re obligated to our commitments,” said Freeman.
When asked if the library would remain open through the summer at full capacity Freeman answered, “We intend to.”
Police had said a forensic accounting investigation is underway. Freeman said that the library has hired an independent company to conduct an extensive forensics auditing “going back to 2010 and finding out exactly what we have, what we don’t have.”
When asked if the library was in need of an emergency loan Freeman said, “I really can’t talk about it because we’re pursuing funding to make sure that on a carry forward basis. that the library finances are secure.”
I wonder is there any audit responsibility of Village of Mamaroneck toward Library accounting since our part of tax money collected by the village of Mamaroneck or collected by under the name of “ Library District” which our house hold is paying about 600$ yearly.
I want express my uneasiness for how the collected tax money spend and there is nothing to do with Village of Mamaroneck.
who will then audit the library accounting?
“They are a separate government. They have their own auditors. We have no audit authority or responsibility.” says Village of Mamaroneck Mayor Tom Murphy.
The Library Board of Trustees are elected. As mentioned in the article, the President of the Library Board of Trustees says that the library has hired an independent forensics auditing going back to 2010.
In comparison, the Village of Larchmont Library is operated much differently. Larchmont’s Library is not an independent district. Also, the Westchester Library System has no oversight of Mamaroneck’s library.
Thank you for your question.