A debit card town employees use to pay for miscellaneous work-related items was breached, Town Treasurer Nancy Luby told Select Board members during a regular meeting Monday evening.
About $200 was siphoned out of the account attached to the debit card and used at a T.J. Maxx in Florida.
Town Administrator Diane Kendall said there are companies out there that will spin numbers until they arrive at a working combination.
“That’s what happened with it,” Kendall said about the card.
Luby said the town was able to recoup all of the funds that were lost as a result of the fraudulent activity. She said the card has since been canceled and cut.
As it stands, no replacement has been issued, which has already become an issue for some departments who rely on the card to purchase work-related items.
Luby told select board members that she has started the process of obtaining a new debit card that would have a small fund balance available on it as a precautionary measure in the event the account is, once again, breached.
“There is unlimited liability for a debit card and we are a town and we might not have money all in one place but it goes back and forth to the point where we might have massive money available to someone who has gone rogue,” Luby said.
Chair John Jordan and select board member Thomas Shevenell signed the paperwork to go ahead with the debit card, but said the town should pursue opening a credit card with a limit on it to be used instead.
Select board member Erik Spitzbarth did not attend the meeting.
The fire department’s proposed 2017 budget is projected to increase.
Its current operating budget is about $85,000, a number that select board members say hasn’t increased much over the years.
The increase is a result of an aggregate of items, although one of the biggest additions could come from a supplemental insurance policy that would provide expanded coverage to members of the department.
Incorporating such measures could help with employee recruitment and retainment.
Abby Kessler can be reached at 924-7172, ext. 234 or akessler@ledgertranscript.com.