By JAIME STUDD

For the Express

BROADALBIN — When Broadalbin’s new highway superintendent first laid eyes on what would be his base of operations, he said it was shocking to say the least.

“I’d like the taxpayers to see this mess,” Lance Winney said.

Winney said he was overwhelmed by the state of the Broadalbin town garage, citing a laundry list of concerns that includes inadequate insulation, a broken window, a leaking sink, numerous safety and code violations and shelves upon shelves of random parts, tools, equipment and paperwork that will take months to make any sense of.

“It’s hard when something’s been neglected for so long,” said Winney. “I need the resources to clean this mess up.”

Priority number one, said Winney, is finding a way to allocate enough resources to make the appropriate repairs, something that may prove more difficult than he anticipated.

“I don’t want to be the new guy who comes in spending money hand over fist,” said Winney. “But I need more money now than I would have if it was run like it should have been all along.”

Unfortunately, money is in short supply.

“He can clean it up and make it a little more secure and more energy efficient for next to nothing. There’s money in there for that,” said Broadalbin town Supervisor Joe DiGiacomo. “There’s a maintenance account for grounds and buildings, but to do anything that costs thousands and thousands of dollars, there’s just no money to do it this year.

“I don’t disagree with what he wants to do,” he added. “I think it has to be taken in steps and put in the budget process. If he wants to do a little remodeling, or do this or do that, put it in the budget for next year.”

Winney said his top priorities are to make the building more energy efficient, organize the paperwork and get a complete inventory of all the parts and equipment.

“We’re going to do a full inventory of what we have now,” said Winney. “I don’t even know if anything’s missing, cause I have no way of know what we we’re supposed to have.”

He said he bought a roll of plastic to cover the windows, one of which is broken and the rest of which are drafty.

“There’s a lot of ways we can take advantage of the resources we have to make it more cost effective,” he said.

“There’s nothing telling him not to do that. There’s nothing telling him not to replace the glass if it’s broke, for God’s sake,” said DiGiacomo. “He wants to remodel that whole office, secure his office. His exact words were: ‘I wanna be like Louie DePalma in the cage overlooking that whole garage.’”

DiGiacomo said he fears Winney may be trying to do too much, too soon, and with little or no regard for the budget.

“Highway wants to spend money, the town board wants to conserve money. It’s basically what happens in every town,” said DiGiacomo.

According to DiGiacomo, the highway department’s budget is $769,000 for this year.

“He has some valid points. He does. But you gotta go about it the right way,” DiGiacomo said. “I don’t see a big concern for the budget in his mind, maybe I’m wrong.”

DiGiacomo cited the recent hiring of a new part-time worker at the garage as an example of Winney’s disregard for budgetary concerns.

“I told him repeatedly that we have a $5,000 line item for part-timers and apparently he has a part-timer there 20 hours a week for the whole year,” said DiGiacomo. “That’s going to blow the part-timer budget right there, and I don’t know what happens when we’re out of payroll money before the end of the year.”

According to Winney, the part-time worker was hired to assist him in the clean-up process and to help with the immediately necessary repairs.

Winney said he would like, eventually, to be able to renovate the garage, but in the immediate future, he simply wants it cleaned up, organized and repaired to meet safety and code standards.

“There’s a lot of buildings that aren’t up to code, but buildings don’t have to be up to code once they’re existing,” said DiGiacomo. “That building was built, I think, in 1961, if I remember right.”

In addition to the repairs, Winney said he had several ideas with regards to cost-saving measures. In addition to remedying the heat loss in the building, Winney said he would like to send one of the highway department workers to school to gain the certification necessary to make all of the equipment repairs in house. He estimates that doing so would save the town approximately $15,000 to $20,000 per year in repair bills alone.

“I guess you gotta look at the numbers, I really don’t know,” said DiGiacomo. “I wouldn’t be in favor of creating another position, I can tell you that. Unless you can really prove it would save money.”

DiGiacomo also said he has some reservations about making any major investments in the highway department, pending the outcome of discussions on the county level about the possibility of consolidating all of the municipal highway departments countywide.

“A couple years ago we talked about a new building. I’d like to see what happens with this consolidation of highways in the county first,” said DiGiacomo. “It’s in the back of my mind.”

As far as the immediate repairs go, Winney said the clean-up process so far as yielded a wealth of scrap metal that he would like to turn in for cash and use the money to buy the necessary materials for the minor repairs and renovations.

But, that too, must first be approved by the board.

DiGiacomo said he does not entirely disagree with Winney’s plans, just the manner in which is going about instituting them.

“I kind of think things should have been looked at to see how things were done and then tweak it. Not come in and just ram things at people not knowing the ramifications,” said DiGiacomo. “He does have some good ideas. I’ll give him that.”

“I had a conversation with him and told him I’m not going to interfere with what he does, as long as he does it within the rules,” he said.

Winney believes a number of factors contributed to the state of disrepair the garage is currently in, not the least of which is lack of initiative on the part of the former highway superintendent Donald Loveless.

In 2010, Loveless, who lost his bid for re-election in November, sued the town when it re-negotiated its contract with local chapter 294 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the highway department’s union, to require a 15 percent employee contribution for a family plan. The policy was later canceled when Loveless ordered the town to discontinue the deductible.

As a result, Winney said he believes Loveless simply quit doing the job, from that point forward.

“He said, ‘you’re not giving me my insurance; you’re not giving me the money I need. I’m not doing my job,” said Winney. “”I don’t blame the guys. I blame the superintendent that was in charge.”

DiGiacomo would not lay the blame entirely at any one person’s feet, but did acknowledge a lack of motivation on Loveless’ part toward the end of his term.

“I don’t know if it’s just because of Loveless to be honest with you,” said DiGiacomo. “I know towards the end, after the election obviously, he didn’t care an didn’t want to do anything.”

“Maybe the highway guys need a little boot in the ass to get going on stuff,” he added. “I can’t go in and tell the highway guys to pick up a broom and do anything. It’s not my job. It’s not within my authority. It’s the highway superintendent’s job to direct the staff. The only thing the supervisor and town board really do is control the money.”

DiGiacomo said the problem was compounded by a troubled relationship between Loveless and the town board, in which Loveless’ requests for funds were repeatedly denied following the lawsuit.

“It’s kind of a two way street because if he (Loveless) did put in for something, the board would deny it anyway, I would bet on it because of the situation,” said DiGiacomo. “After you get turned down so many times, you just don’t bother, I guess.”

Calls to Loveless were not answered.