A Public Fund but Not a Town Fund

By Becky Coffey
Published on 4/3/2008

Amid growing controversy about potential misuse and misallocation of public donations to the police department by Old Saybrook Police Chief Edmund Mosca, the board tasked with police department oversight is taking a wait-and-see approach before entering the fray. In a meeting last week the town’s Police Commission voted to ask the Connecticut attorney general for a report of the office’s investigation into documents associated with the MacMurray fund, a charitable fund managed by Mosca. The “Mac Fund” is based on donations received by the department to honor the memory of Patrolman Raymond MacMurray after he died in an auto accident in 1973. An aunt of MacMurray who came to claim his body at the time told town leaders that donations received in his honor should be used to benefit the police department. Mosca said last month that funds on deposit in this account total $32,000. Questions have been raised about the nature of expenditures Mosca allegedly authorized from the fund–including payments for lobster dinners for a police chiefs’ association gathering–and about whether he followed state rules governing documentation and reporting for charitable funds. Donations intended for other police charities such as the benevolent association fund have also allegedly been steered to the Mac Fund. Attorney General Blumenthal’s office is currently investigating more than 2,000 pages of documents supplied by Mosca to assess if state rules with respect to charitable giving and reporting were followed. What remains unclear is whether, even if members of the Police Commission might disagree with spending choices Mosca might have made from the fund, the commission has the authority to discuss this issue with the chief if no municipal–that is, taxpayer–funds were involved. The Police Commission began to publicly grapple with this issue at its meeting last week. A recent decision by the Freedom of Information Commission did find that records associated with the MacMurray fund were “public records” under the Freedom of Information Act, but at this point, it does appear to be a municipal or government fund. To help research these issues, Chairman Christina Burnham worked with the commission on first steps. First, the body voted to ask the Attorney General for a copy of his completed investigative report on the 2,000 pages of documents related to the fund, its donations, its disbursements, and its reporting. Second, the commission voted to research the extent of authority that Police Commissions like Old Saybrook have in matters like these. Commissioner Richard Metsack agreed to research and collect statutes, by-laws, and ordinances that govern Old Saybrook’s Police Commission operations and to collect similar documents from other area towns to use as benchmarks. In the research he’s conducted so far, Metsack has found that state statutes governing Police Commission operations are vague and do not speak to any additional authority of the Police Commission might have beyond the right to hire and fire employees. “State statutes do not provide clear and detailed guidance to advise the Police Commission on how to operate” in circumstances like this, explained Metsack. Metsack said he would report back to the commission with the information he’s collected at the group’s next meeting on Monday, April 28. The Police Department officially had no comment on the ongoing MacMurray fund investigation. Spokesman Lt. Michael Spera said that at this point, the fund investigation is not considered a police department issue.