The treasurer and chair of the Vermont Democrat Party didn’t have access to bank accounts or payroll information when a former staffer allegedly embezzled more than $18,000 from party coffers between January and June this year.
The party’s chair, Terje Anderson, said Monday that he should have put more pressure on Brandon Batham, the former operations manager who Democrats say stole from the organization, to let other officials access the financial records.
“I feel like my responsibility and my biggest mistake was not insisting on that because that probably would have prevented something,” Anderson said. “If somebody had known that somebody was looking at this stuff, it probably wouldn’t have happened.”
Anderson added that he should have fired Batham earlier this year, after the former employee delayed in providing financial information, or made excuses for not doing so.
“In retrospect I should have fired him right then … when we didn’t get that stuff.”
The party announced Sunday it had filed criminal charges against Batham with Montpelier police, two weeks after it issued a statement saying it had found seven instances of financial misuse by a party employee, reaching a total of $2,938.31.
But in a statement this weekend, Democratic officials said the total was much higher—$18,500— and that Batham had allegedly skimmed the party’s payroll system, wrote himself bonuses, gave himself a raise and used other methods to enrich himself with party funds.
Batham has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Following the embezzlement scandal, Anderson said, the party is taking new steps to ensure its financial security.
From now on, its treasurer and chair will be able to access party accounts and payroll, officials will review expenditures on a monthly basis, and checks will be reviewed by two individuals before they’re signed. Previously, only the party’s operations manager and executive director could access the accounts.
The party also plans on outsourcing all of its accounting and financial compliance work to an independent firm.
In a memo released to party members this weekend, Democratic officials said “safeguards” that could have prevented the embezzlement were limited, because the party’s former executive director, Josh Massey, did not “effectively” oversee the organization’s day to day financial operations for the first four months of 2019.
Massey left his position in April. As executive director, he was responsible for “reviewing documentation for expenditures and signing checks.”
“During much of the spring and early summer of 2019, the Party Chair and Treasurer repeatedly asked the Executive Director and Operations Director Batham for more detailed financial statements of accounts, but these requests were ignored or deferred with promises to produce them soon,” the memo said.
Conor Casey, who served as VDP executive director until 2018, said he was surprised by the tone of the memo because it “seemed to place a lot of the blame on the feet of Josh Massey.”
“I think as the Vermont Democratic Party looks at moving forward it’s important to share these responsibilities and work as a team to address them,” Casey said.
Massey declined to comment on the situation.
Anderson clarified Monday that Massey also sought financial records from Batham and was frustrated when he didn’t receive them. But he said that Massey should have done more to verify documentation before signing checks with party accounts.
However, he stressed that he doesn’t consider Massey responsible for the incident.
“It’s much more an overall failure of the entire structure of the party, that we didn’t stop this from happening,” Anderson said. “Buck stops somewhere and it stops with me, no question.”
The party’s bylaws say that the Democratic state chair is responsible for the “full funding for all budgets” and that the treasurer is the organization’s “chief financial officer.” But both Anderson and the party’s treasurer Billi Gosh say they could not access party bank accounts and payroll.
Gosh said it wasn’t always the case that the treasurer could not get into the accounts, but declined to “go into” what changed or when.
Casey, the party’s former executive director, said low staff levels may have created the conditions that led to the alleged embezzlement.
The party used to hire a compliance officer, Selene Hofer-Shall, who served as a consultant and helped oversee party finances, but she left at the end of 2017. After her departure, other party members, and eventually Batham, took over her duties.
When Hofer-Shall left, party staffers struggled to keep the books in order, and were still working to get them up to date in 2019, according to Anderson.
“I think understaffing is the main culprit here,” Casey said.
“Any time you don’t have more eyes on this stuff you’re going to be subject to more malfeasance in this case,” he added. “I think because the staff is so close you build a trusting relationship and maybe that trust goes too far.”
