In the first quarter of 2024, Moosic Borough administrative staff uncovered an impropriety when auditing year end payroll. Immediately upon uncovering irregularities in the former Borough Administrator, Jane Sterling’s payroll records, Borough Officials engaged the District Attorney’s office for guidance and additional review.
At the conclusion of an extensive investigation, the DA’s office has determined that wrongdoing occurred and proceeded to move forward with filing charges.
In the interim, Borough officials took immediate steps to ensure that checks and balances were put in place to prevent something like this from ever happening again. These steps include-
- Hiring a professional payroll company in early 2024 to process our payroll;
- Conducting an internal audit of accrued time off and engaging additional support from our auditor to review payroll of all retiring employees prior to their accrued time being released;
- Engaging in a Strategic Planning Program and the Pennsylvania Economy League (PEL) as a proactive step to review our financial records and practices to develop a five-year financial strategy for the Borough and PEL will be recommending appropriate internal controls;
- Updating all of the policies and procedures to professional standards and distributing them to all employees;
- Ensuring every payroll is signed off by two administrative staff members;
- Eliminating carryover of accrued time for administrative staff who are not bound by a collective bargaining agreement;
“We are devastated to bring these allegations of abuse of power and position to light. We understand that the trust of borough residents has been betrayed. Our trust has also been betrayed. Together we welcome the input and support of borough residents to rebuild from this moment. Moosic Borough continues to fully cooperate with the District Attorney’s office in their investigation.” Mayor Robert Bennie
Due to the severity of these allegations, we request that Jane Sterling resign from Moosic Borough Council and the Planning Commission immediately.
Any further questions about the investigation should be directed to the Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office.
Because of the ongoing nature of this matter, borough officials have been advised by their counsel to refrain from any further public comment on this matter so as not to compromise the criminal investigation.
















