By:Alec Moore
A former borough employee has raised harsh allegations about the way business is conducted in Borough Hall and the way employees who work there are treated.
Michelle Ajamian, who resigned from her position as tax assessment/search officer with the borough earlier this month, alleged in a letter sent to Borough Administrator Gary Garwacke a copy of which she provided to The Manville News that the tax office is run in an unprofessional and fiscally irresponsible manner.
Mayor Angelo Corradino declined to comment on the letter in question and on any aspect of Ms. Ajamian’s employment with the borough as a confidential personnel matter.
Borough Administrator Gary Garwacke did not respond to repeated calls for comment.
To exemplify her allegation, Ms. Ajamian says there is a property in Manville that has not paid taxes in several years and that the borough has not made any effort to the collect back taxes.
"We have a property in Manville that owes years of taxes and we have a municipal lien on the property," Ms. Ajamian wrote in the letter to the mayor and council. "The gentleman that owns that property has been collecting rent for years, but does not pay his taxes. After going to school, I learned that we can intercept the rent and apply it to back taxes."
Ms. Ajamian, who worked for the borough for roughly four years, also charges that in her view the borough does not provide fair treatment to all of its employees in terms of work allocation, responsibility and wages. She says that preferential treatment is given to some employees who are permitted to delegate their duties to others.
Ms. Ajamian also says that, when inquiring about an administrative assistant’s position with the borough, she was told by a supervisor that she would not receive a pay increase if she were to get the job. She adds that the supervisor, who discouraged her from formally applying for the job, said the employee who would be hired to fill the position would not receive a salary greater than her roughly $27,000 per year salary. Ms. Ajamian, however, says she is aware that the individual who was eventually hired to fill the administrative assistants position was given a salary roughly $3,000 greater than hers.
