Editor’s note: After publication, Town Manager Mark Pruhenski confirmed to The Edge that Karen Fink’s resignation was “totally unrelated” to the Deborah Ball case. The headline has also been changed to reflect that confirmation.
GREAT BARRINGTON — Great Barrington treasurer and tax collector Karen Fink resigned this week, less than two years after her assistant pleaded not guilty to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the town.
Town Manager Mark Pruhenski confirmed that Fink resigned on Wednesday, the day before the town issued a press release concerning a “career opportunity” in town hall for a new treasurer/collector. The release did not mention Fink’s resignation the day before.
“We posted the position earlier today in hopes of filling the vacancy as soon as possible,” Pruhenski told The Edge on Thursday. As is customary in personnel matters, Pruhenski and other town officials declined to elaborate or disclose why Fink left her job.
The treasurer/collector is an appointed position and reports to Pruhenski and town Finance Director Susan Carmel. The treasurer/collector manages and supervises an office of as many as three employees and her responsibilities include “the cash and debt management and the collection of monies for the Town including real estate, personal property and excise taxes, all municipal fees, charges, bills and revenues committed to the office of the treasurer-collector,” according to the release.
Fink was hired for the position in February 2016, according to her LinkedIn page. Before coming to Great Barrington, she served as assistant treasurer/collector in Lee and, immediately preceding her stint in Great Barrington, treasurer in the town of Otis for almost 12 years.
In August 2019, Fink’s former assistant, Deborah Ball, pleaded not guilty in Berkshire Superior Court in Pittsfield to charges of larceny and embezzlement. Interestingly, Ball entered her plea through her attorney, Judith Knight, who had run against now-District Attorney Andrea Harrington for the Democratic nomination for DA the previous year and lost.
Prosecutors said at the time that a 2018 audit by a private accounting firm revealed that Ball had stolen more than $100,000 from town coffers over several years dating back to 2012, though Harrington said there could “potentially be additional amounts that are discovered.”
Harrington said it does not appear that anyone else was involved in the scheme. Harrington’s office had confirmed to The Edge in March 2019 that Ball was already under criminal investigation. Fink herself was never implicated in the Ball case.
See video below of a news conference concerning Deborah Ball held on Aug. 14, 2019, by Berkshire District Attorney Andrea Harrington outside the entrance to Superior Court in Pittsfield:
Harrington said evidence presented to the grand jury in 2019 showed Ball stole in excess of $100,000 through a “fraudulent Ponzi scheme committed in the tax collector’s office.”
Auditors determined that Ball embezzled real estate and excise taxes that residents and business owners paid in cash to the town of Great Barrington and tried to cover up the losses by applying portions of check payments made by other taxpayers.
Detectives with the Berkshire State Police Unit assigned to the DA’s Office led a criminal investigation into the matter with assistance from the Great Barrington Police Department.
Ball had worked for the town of Great Barrington for nearly 35 years. The town placed her on paid administrative leave on Feb. 21, 2019, and she was fired three weeks later. Prosecutors have not yet publicly disclosed what they think Ball spent the money on.
Harrington spokesperson Andy McKeever told The Edge that the Ball case has been delayed by the pandemic and is still pending. No date for a trial has yet been set.
“The Trial Court still hasn’t begun 12-person jury trials, so many cases are pending awaiting the resumption of trials,” McKeever said in an email.
Knight, who still represents Ball, told The Edge that many Superior Court cases have been “backed up by the pandemic” and that her client’s case might be heard by the end of the year.
“I expect that the cases where people are in custody would be tried first,” Knight said.
Reached by The Edge, Fink declined to comment. Ball remains free on bail.
