Paying More for Less in Bloomfield: Part 4

Paying More for Less in Bloomfield: Part 4 - The Loophole, the Legal Overrun, and the Taxpayer-Funded Stonewall

AI-generated satirical cartoon (Gemini/Nano Banana Pro) depicting the escalating cost of the administration's legal firewall.

By Peter C. Frank

Editor-in-Chief | May 3, 2026

(Catch up on the series: Read Part 3 - The Broken Ledger: Audits, Plugs, and the S&P Downgrade)

BLOOMFIELD — On Wednesday, April 21, 2026, this newspaper published Part 3 of its investigative series alongside a 26-page alternative budget framework that demonstrated how the Town could restore every eliminated community service while reducing the proposed tax increase to approximately four percent. Earlier that afternoon, the Dispatch had sent a standard pre-publication press inquiry to Town Manager Alvin D. Schwapp, Jr. and Finance Director Darrell V. Hill, asking how the public could rely on the FY2024 audit given two Material Weaknesses, one of which required a 16-year retroactive accounting "plug" just to balance the trial balance, and what measures were being taken to restore the town's downgraded credit rating.

The Town Manager declined to provide financial data or substantive answers. The fuller details of that response are documented in the Part 3 update.

This article focuses on what the response revealed about the structural mechanism that allows such deflection to occur in the first place, and about the fiscal architecture beneath it.

The story of how a municipality facing severe budgetary constraints can afford to use a private law firm as a public relations buffer, particularly when that same law firm is the subject of the press inquiries being deflected, lies in a structural loophole that has allowed the executive branch to operate outside normal legislative oversight.

The "Purchasing Agent" Loophole and the Consultant Defense

The Town Attorney's budget line has exploded, registering a verifiable 127% overrun. The FY2026 Revised Budget originally allocated $268,538 for legal services. However, the FY2026 Projected Actuals have skyrocketed to an astounding $608,796. For this massive expenditure of public funds, the record does not show a public council vote on the contract increase.

During the April 28 budget deliberations, the legislative body realized they had been sidelined. Deputy Mayor Cindi Lloyd acknowledged on the record during Council deliberations that the Council had not acted on the Town Attorney's contract because they forgot the Town Manager held procurement authority: "I knew but I forgot that town manager is the purchasing agent for the town... the town manager is the purchasing agent and he handles contractual increases."

A day prior, on April 27, Attorney Crumbie offered a similar defense on the record, telling the Council: "I am not [an employee]. I'm a consultant. I'm a consultant for the town, similar to any other consultant... the town manager signs those contracts. Town council is not involved."

By classifying the Town's chief legal counsel as a standard third-party "consultant," the Town Manager unilaterally authorized explosive hourly legal billing without an affirmative council vote on the record, if such approval was required under the town’s governing rules. This enabled Attorney Crumbie to testify that his hourly rate increased to $250, a change that raises questions about approval and oversight: "I waited for an additional year before I increased my rate just recently to the 250 rate."

The $110,000 Cost of Referendum Litigation

What exactly is driving this $608,796 legal overrun? A significant, measurable portion of this bandwidth is being deployed to combat transparency and defend against taxpayer lawsuits and administrative proceedings.

Detailed breakdowns separating Crumbie's billings from those of other outside counsel remain unavailable. The town is currently routing all FOIA requests — including those seeking these very legal invoices — through the Town Attorney's office itself.

During that same April 27 meeting, Attorney Crumbie made a stunning admission. He confirmed that his firm spent $110,000 in unbudgeted taxpayer money solely to fight last year's budget referendum lawsuit. "This singular lawsuit cost the taxpayers of Bloomfield $110,000... That is year to date," Crumbie stated.

The administration is asking taxpayers to absorb a tax increase and cut community services while simultaneously paying an outside law firm $110,000 to defend against a taxpayer lawsuit over the budget referendum process.

The FOIA Software Procurement and Its Aftermath

The same structural concerns now appear in the town’s FOIA workflow. In the FY2027 Budget Book, the administration requests approximately $19,000 for "NextRequest by CivicPlus," a FOIA tracking software package ostensibly intended for the Town Clerk's office to efficiently process records requests.

Instead, this system has essentially been used to direct requests through the Town Attorney's office. Work that should logically be handled administratively by the Town Clerk is now functioning as additional work for outside counsel.

During the April 21 deliberation, Councilor Shamar Mahon attempted to kill the software funding, correctly diagnosing the problem as manufactured. "I feel like a lot of the stress that is coming from these FOIA requests is self-imposed," Mahon stated on the record, "because we are pushing items off the FOIA requests that... previously were not FOIA requests."

Contextualizing these structural concerns, the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission has previously fined Town Manager Schwapp $1,500 for FOIA-related conduct in Docket Number FIC 2024-0425, with the hearing officer finding his testimony 'not credible' three times across multiple hearings. Inside Investigator reported on those findings in July 2025, documenting concerns about the relationship between the Town Manager's office and the Crumbie Law Group that the Council has not yet substantively addressed.

Editor's Note: In strict compliance with the Town Manager's April 21 written directive, The Dispatch submitted a formal press inquiry regarding the 127% legal budget overrun and the $110,000 referendum litigation expense exclusively to Town Attorney Andrew R. Crumbie prior to publication. As of publishing, no response has been received. This article will be updated if the administration or its outside legal counsel responds.

The Structural Solution

A 127% budget overrun is not a mathematical inevitability; it is an administrative choice facilitated by an exploited loophole. To restore fiscal discipline to the Town Attorney’s budget, the Council should take the following five actions:

1. Initiate a Forensic Legal Audit: The Council must order an immediate, forensic-level audit of all invoices submitted by the Town Attorney over the past 24 months. Any billing tied to "undefined" categories or the hourly processing of routine FOIA requests must be scrutinized for potential recoupment.
2. Mandatory Competitive Rebidding (RFP): The Town Attorney contract must be summarily dismissed and put out to bid through a formal Request for Proposals (RFP) process.
3. Close the Purchasing Agent Loophole: The Town Council must pass a binding resolution requiring an affirmative legislative vote for any contract, rate increase, or retainer agreement pertaining to the Town Attorney, permanently stripping the Town Manager of unilateral legal procurement authority.
4. FOIA Litigation Caps: The Council must institute a strict policy limiting the administration's ability to use outside legal counsel to fight FOIA requests, fundamentally shifting the town's default posture from "litigation and obstruction" to "compliance and disclosure."
5. Mandate Independent Counsel for Conflict Matters: The Town Council should pass a resolution requiring that any matter in which the Town Attorney has a personal or financial interest, including any review of his own billing practices or the FOIA processing arrangement that flows through his firm, must be handled by independent outside counsel selected through a transparent process that expressly excludes the Crumbie Law Group from participation.

If the town can find hundreds of thousands of dollars in a loophole to fund an un-itemized legal overrun, it can easily find the funds to open the pool for the children of Bloomfield.

Check back soon for the final installment of our series: Part 5: The Transparency Deficit & The Fiscal Phantoms. In this comprehensive finale, we will break down irregularities in regional service line items, the administration's reliance on unaudited reserve drains to balance the ledger, the procedural stonewalling of taxpayers, and the broader cultural cost of municipal secrecy.