Muskego chief says he’s digging out from a hole
By Jacqueline Seibel
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
MUSKEGO, Wis. — Andy Mack has known for months that his Muskego Volunteer Fire Company faces an uncertain future, as city officials plan to impose a merger of the private operation with another department.
For now, though, Mack has more immediate concerns — keeping the gas turned on among them — as he continues to dig the department out of the financial shambles he says he inherited from the organization’s previous leadership.
“We try to always do our business locally,” said Mack, who was elected fire chief by the department’s members in January. “You feel like a fool when you don’t pay your neighbor.”
For more than 50 years, the department has served Muskego under an arrangement unusual for the Milwaukee area: It divides coverage of the city of about 23,000 residents with the Tess Corners Volunteer Fire Department, another private operation under contract with the city.
Muskego officials have raised questions about the financial accountability of the Muskego department, which missed an August deadline for a financial report, and are working toward forming a single department.
Each year since 2004, the city has given Tess Corners about $160,000 and Muskego from $257,000 to $289,000 for operational costs.
Mack says progress is being made in shoring up the department’s operations and that rectifying the problems of the past will take time.
One of the first issues he faced when he took over the department, Mack said, was a pile of unattended mail, including bills and late notices from utilities and others.
No receipts for purchases
Receipts are missing for 80 purchases that were never approved, Mack said. In some cases, the company knows purchases were made at Menards or Home Depot but doesn’t know what was bought, Mack said.
Financial records are not in the building or in the computer, Mack said.
Domonic D’Acquisto, the former president of the company, declined to comment, saying that he wasn’t involved in the fire company anymore and had nothing meaningful to contribute.
Mack says that when D’Acquisto left earlier this year, he refused to give the new administration the password to the computer system. When Mack asked D’Acquisto for the password again, he sent the new administration a three-page letter telling them to stop harassing him, Mack said.
The fire company had to pay a technician $800 to open the system, he said.
D’Acquisto is a former Milwaukee police officer convicted in the 1981 beating of James Schoemperlen. D’Acquisto was forced to resign as a Muskego alderman after a constitutional change in 1996 prevented convicted felons from holding elected office. D’Acquisto has denied that he struck Schoemperlen.
The 2002 and 2003 budgets for the company show a $5,000 contingency fund was available. The cushion fund was $3,000 in 2004. Since then, the company hasn’t had any rainy-day fund.
The company also recently received notice from the Internal Revenue Service that taxes were not filed for the company in 2004 and 2005. Mike Kersky, the company’s president, said he believes that the IRS is referring to the Muskego Fire Department Inc., which is now defunct. D’Acquisto attempted to change the name of the volunteer company to the Muskego Fire Department, but never completed the process. Taxes were filed, however, under the Muskego Volunteer Fire Company, Kersky said.
While president, D’Acquisto opened up five bank accounts in the company’s name. Kersky has reduced those to just one.
Prior to D’Acquisto’s stint as president, Mack said, the company always had money in the bank, sometimes as much as $200,000. Today, the company has nothing saved, he said.
A Muskego police investigation in 2006 determined there was no wrongdoing, simply bad money management. Mack agreed.
Mack has asked the city for patience, but he fears time is running out.
He points to positive signs: Membership is up five this year, to 49, and the relationship with the Tess Corners Volunteer Fire Department - described in the past as dysfunctional and childish - has improved, he said.
Though city officials say more than $100,000 would be saved under a merger, Mack said he doubts that combining the departments will lead to efficiency. The budget will be the same because equipment needs will be the same, he said.
Jeff Verburgt, president of the board of the Tess Corners department, had said his volunteers did not believe that joining the two departments was needed, especially because personnel changes have cooled tempers on both sides.
“We’re performing as expected, and we’ve had joint training exercises and opened up lines of communication,” Verburgt had said at a recent city meeting. “Personnel attitudes have improved.”
Copyright 2007 Journal Sentinel Inc.