Chronicle editor presses Columbia Borough Council for independent audit, release of employee separation agreement

Jesse Sweigart questioned the borough's handling of its finances, its police department and a recent employee resignation.

JOE LINTNER | COLUMBIA SPY 

At Tuesday's Borough Council meeting, Columbia Chronicle Editor Jesse Sweigart questioned the borough's handling of its finances, its police department and a recent employee resignation. He called on council to bring in an independent forensic auditor.

Sweigart said he was not there to accuse anyone of a crime, but to raise questions prompted by borough records he obtained through Right-to-Know requests and published as "the Jack files." Council, he said, has not answered those questions for him or other news outlets.

Employee resignation

Sweigart said a longtime code department employee resigned Monday under a non-disclosure agreement. She had also served as the borough's Right-to-Know officer and trained new staff. He said she was a non-contract employee and was widely described by council as doing "the work of three people."

Sweigart said the resignation came less than two weeks after Borough Manager Jack Brommer's own resignation was announced at the October 13 meeting. He added that he had been told several council members did not know she had resigned, and that no executive session was held to discuss it.

"Last time I checked, it was a violation of the Sunshine Law to accept a resignation without having a meeting," Sweigart said, adding that he might be wrong. He asked who negotiated and signed the agreement, under what authority, and how much public money, if any, was promised. He said a separation agreement paid for by taxpayers is a public record under Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know Law. An NDA, he said, "can limit what she may say, but it can't keep the public from knowing or seeing the deal."

Manager's pay and leave

Sweigart said Brommer's 2011 contract as police chief classified him as an exempt employee not entitled to overtime or compensatory time. He said time sheets nonetheless show a comp-time balance rising from 107.5 hours in July 2024 to 178.5 hours by December 2024. A late-July 2024 time sheet logs 12.5 hours of overtime, he said, with the supervisor and manager approval lines blank. A 2023 pay stub shows comp time paid out at $51.78 an hour.

He said a February 2026 agreement made Brommer borough manager at $110,000 a year and limits carryover of unused leave to five days. Yet the same agreement carries forward his entire old leave bank and pays it out, Sweigart said. The payments are $22,549.96 in May 2026, another $22,549.90 in May 2027, and the remainder in 2028. The agreement was made retroactive to September 2025, he said, meaning that for eight months Brommer was both police chief and interim manager, "paid an extra $2,000 a month in a role he supervised himself."

Police department

Sweigart cited statements by Police Chief Holly Arndt, who he said told council she inherited a department needing "foundational rebuilding." He said she described bags of parking-enforcement coins sitting in the evidence room as unprocessed borough revenue, and said she told him there were 21 bags. He estimated each holds about $1,000.

"Coins collected for the borough belong in the borough bank account, not an evidence locker," he said. He also cited a police bank account the chief took over with no record of its origin or use. He said she asked for an audit and that "to date, nothing's been done."

Sweigart: "To be fair, none of this proves anyone stole anything, but it shows money and records that no one outside of the building has checked."

He said records also show that police radios don't work, that the license plate reader was shut off after its subscription lapsed, and that body camera storage is 92 percent full. He said Brommer's time sheets could not be located, and that Arndt wrote to him that the signed copy of her own contract was being held by the borough manager and never given to her.

"To be fair, none of this proves anyone stole anything," Sweigart said, "but it shows money and records that no one outside of the building has checked."

Finance office

Sweigart said the finance manager hired in August 2025 was gone by December. Council voted 5-2 in June to hire a replacement, who never started. He said that person wrote in an email to the Chronicle that month-end closings were far behind and the outside accounting firm was still finishing bank reconsolidations from March. She also had no written offer on the morning she planned to resign from her current job, he said. The position has now been vacant for about 10 months.

"The council cannot be the one to investigate itself," Sweigart said. "Even if every answer turns out to be innocent, residents will only believe if someone independent says so."

Requests to council

Sweigart said he expected to be ignored, and said some council members "belittle me at meetings, call my newspaper a trash rag." "It's okay," he added. He then put several requests to council:

• Hire an independent forensic auditor with no prior borough work to review payroll, comp time, leave payouts, police department accounts, and whether the books are reconciled from 2020 to the present.
• Refer the evidence-room coins and the police bank account to the Lancaster County District Attorney for an independent count and review. He said he has already called the district attorney.
• Hold the 2027 and 2028 leave payments to Brommer until an audit confirms they were properly calculated and approved.
• Release the employee separation agreement, along with any payment made under it and the name of the person who signed it, and bring it to a public vote.
• Preserve all records touched by the questions, including emails, time sheets and evidence logs, "starting tonight."
• Answer the Chronicle's published questions in writing within 30 days, by email or on the borough website.

Sweigart said he warned of possible "future litigation" and accused council of violating the Sunshine Law over the resignation. "I hear a lot of bitching, but I don't see no action," he told members. He added that if members don't want the job, they should resign and let council colleagues pick replacements.

He also said residents could file complaints with the Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission or contact the district attorney themselves. "Columbia has good people working for it," he said, "and she was one of them. They deserve a government that can show its work."