As city leaders move forward and try to put the sizable accounting error behind them, some residents continue to question why the fire districts never came forward to report the overpayments or why the city failed to disclose the situation to the public.

“The fire departments should have called the city right away. The mayor should have been notified and the mayor should have in turn notified the public right away,” resident Todd Tompkins said Monday, adding: “There’s no transparency.”

Finance Director Robert Barron estimated last week that the Center District was overpaid about $1.7 million, the West Shore District $1.1 million and Allingtown $400,000. Most of the money was paid back to the city through the withholding of tax payments in December and part of January. In addition, the Center District gave the city a check for $500,000 in December.

Mayor John M. Picard has taken responsibility for the error, saying the overpayments occurred during the four-month period after former Finance Director Nalini Srinivas was suspended in December 2006 and before Barron took over the finance office in May 2007. Picard and fire officials involved maintain that the clerical error had no lasting impact on the fire districts or the city. The city, meanwhile, continues to face a $14.4 million deficit as it enters budget season.

Tompkins, who also heads a taxpayer alliance that watches over the Center District, said the overpayment is symptomatic of a bigger problem with the fire departments and that consolidation of the three separate fire districts could prevent such errors in the future.

“If they were to consolidate and be run by the city, you wouldn’t have to worry about one department overpaying another department,” he said.

Tompkins also raised concerns about what kind of interest $3.2 million could be raising for the city. If the fire departments have been earning that interest instead, he thinks it should be repaid to the city.

Dorinda Borer, who campaigned on fire district consolidation when she ran against Picard on the A Better Future ticket last year, agreed that consolidation could have streamlined finances and prevented such a huge mistake.

“You have four legislative bodies collecting taxes. It’s archaic. It’s inefficient and there’s absolutely no reason for it,” she said Monday.

Local businessman Laurence P. Czajkowski called the whole situation “gross mismanagement.”

“All nine fire commissioners and all three of the chiefs should all be ashamed of themselves for not coming forward with this,” he said.

He also said people on the “third floor of City Hall,” referring to Picard and his administration, should not use Srinivas as a scapegoat. “This could only happen in West Haven,” he said.

Picard on Monday reiterated that the city was not trying to keep the public in the dark about the overpayments.“We just wanted to verify the numbers,” he said. “We are one city. It all comes from the same tax dollars no matter how you slice it.”

Regarding the issue of fire department consolidation, Picard said he met with the three fire commission chairmen after Christmas and encouraged them to set up a committee to study the idea.

Two of the city’s fire district leaders reached Monday defended their department’s handling of the overpayments and argued that lack of documentation complicated matters.

Newly appointed Center District Chief James P. O’Brien said his department was waiting for paperwork about the overpayments before taking any action.

“At that time, we weren’t sure if we got an increase in tax revenue,” he said Monday. “We had no intention of spending it because it wasn’t in our budget.”

West Shore Deputy Fire Chief Clifford T. Burns said his fire district knew it received a bigger-than-usual payment last spring, but thought the surplus might be coming from aggressive back tax collection on the city’s part.

“We weren’t trying to deceive anybody,” he said Monday.

Burns also said the fact that no paperwork accompanied that extra payment made it difficult for the fire department to determine if it was overpaid and, if so, how much.

Allingtown Fire Chief Victor J. Sampietro could not be reached for comment Monday.