Invoices submitted to Middletown’s Public Works Department were altered, changing the location of the work performed to other street projects sometimes located across town, as the understaffed department struggled to comply with road bond restraints, pay contractors, and locate invoices several years old, according to emails and a city investigation report obtained by Inside Investigator through a Freedom of Information Request.

In August of 2025, Middletown Technology Services Director Brianna Skowera emailed Mayor Gene Nocera and head of Public Works Bobbye Knoll Peterson that she had found “evidence of financial fraud,” and evidence of “a criminal act,” when her department determined that Chief Management Analyst Rohan Manning had digitally altered the invoices. Mayor Nocera has denied that there was any fraudulent or criminal conduct.

The “discrepancies” in contractor invoices was first noticed in early August, when city officials found that invoices supplied by C&C Concrete and Curb, a city contractor who was trying to get paid for outstanding invoices going back three years, “did not match the invoices on file for checks that had been cut for payment,” according to a timeline of events written by Peterson and sent in an August 8 email. 

Various city officials began to work with C&C to examine their original invoices, and the IT Department was contacted to determine if someone had digitally altered the invoices. Skowera ultimately determined Manning had changed them using city software and recommended that he be restricted from all city computer access.

A comparison between the six original invoices supplied by C&C and the altered invoices in the city’s computer system shows street names were changed, often to streets across town or an ample enough distance away from where C&C performed the work to raise red flags. 

• A $21,235 project on Prout Hill Road was changed to Bartholomew Road 2.3 miles away.
• A $5,336 project on Carll Road was changed to Yellow Wood Road, also 2.3 miles away.
• A $2,722 project for the Emergency Management Parking Lot was changed to just a PO Box, although it was same PO Box listed on the original invoice.
•  Three projects totaling $17,672 were changed from Murray Street, Crystal Lake Drive, and Sachem Drive all to Meadowbrook at distances of .6 miles, 1 mile, and 6.8 miles, respectively.

According to sources close to the matter and notes from the city’s investigation, Middletown had a practice of occasionally using the cross street as the location of the work rather than the street where the work was performed. However, that is only the case for one $10,351 invoice in which Lewis Street was changed to Morgan Street; the rest of the changes are at least half a mile away. 

Tina Gomes, a retired city financial analyst whom Nocera hired as a consultant to help get the city’s finances in order, also raised the possibility of the city running into trouble with the Connecticut Department of Labor, as public works projects often include state-mandated prevailing wages.

“If that is the case, then Payroll Certifications need to be available for review by the Department of Labor,” Gomes wrote. “C&C most likely included the street where the work was performed as listed on the Job Sheets they provided for my review. This would definitely raise a red flag with the Labor Department since the Certified Payrolls Project Name and the City’s payment records do not agree. C&C is already concerned that their records may have been compromised based on the misapplications of payments.”

City officials tried to keep the invoicing problems quiet, asking staff not to discuss the matter with anyone. Both Gomes and Skowera warned that not doing anything “puts us in a sensitive position,” and “would reflect poorly on the City,” if word got out.

Emails indicate that Middletown Human Resources held investigation meetings with Manning, Peterson, Gomes, and several others. On October 14, there was a “comprehensive review and discussion of curbing invoices that were altered prior to payment by the Finance Department,” between Manning, Nocera, and Erlacher “to clarify the circumstances that led to these actions, assess procedural weaknesses, and establish corrective measures.”

“The Mayor emphasized that the form and manner in which these invoice changes were made directly triggered the broader investigation into payment procedures,” the summary notes said. “It was noted that this situation likely could have been avoided had Rohan consulted with his immediate supervisor to explain the rationale behind the invoice adjustments before submission. All parties agreed that such a lapse in communication and procedure must not occur again.”

Manning was returned to his position and duties with additional oversight and new procedures for processing invoices. In various emails throughout the documents, Manning indicates that he was alone in trying to clean up and handle Public Works’ various financial problems, which necessitated the hiring of Gomes and two others. 

“The issue I have is that I have no help, it is just me,” Manning wrote to Peterson in a March 24, 2025, email.

In an October 3, 2025, memorandum to Mayor Nocera, Manning documents how he was moved to Public Works at a time of upheaval, with directors leaving, a budget analyst going on leave, and former Mayor Benjamin Florsheim resigning.

“There was no person in any role in that department who was able to continue the necessary and vital functions of the office at the time,” Manning wrote. “From approximately March of 2025 through August of 2025, Public Works functioning stalled to an almost complete halt. In an effort to continue with vital functions in Public Works, I carried out to the best of my ability and without instruction or supervision the duties normally undertaken by the Director of Public Works, Deputy Director of Public Works, and Budget Analyst of Public Works, in addition to my normal duties as Chief Management Analyst.”

Indeed, an investigation report dated October 10, 2025, noted the Public Works Department “is experiencing significant operations and procedural challenges that undermine the integrity of its financial processes,” and that “chronic understaffing has left key roles vacant and forced remaining staff to take on responsibilities outside their primary duties.”

The investigation found that Manning had changed the street names on the invoices so the work could be charged to city bond funds. The investigation indicates that former Deputy Director and Acting Director of Public Works Harold Weissberg said it was a “longstanding departmental practice” to charge work to “adjacent roads” in order to “keep projects moving forward, even though it sometimes required alternative methods to navigate the constraints of individual road bonds and available funding sources.”

However, the investigation later notes that some of the street names “do not appear to be adjacent to the originals, raising concerns about the accuracy and appropriateness of these changes.”

“The investigation found no evidence of broader document tampering, concealment, or personal gain,” the investigation states. “However, it should be noted, there was no proper documentation justifying the invoice modifications. It should be noted that Mr. Manning stated that he did not understand that changing these documents could misalign with what was approved for road bonds.”

Emails from September 2024 between Manning and Assistant Finance Director Tanya Oliver-Perry show Manning tried to charge emergency road repairs to a bond that didn’t cover that area. 

“The area you are doing is not in the Bond Ordinance you are trying to charge it to,” Oliver-Perry wrote. “I cannot approve anything if the Street is not in the ordinance which was approved by Bond Counsel, the Common Council and the voters.”

Peterson then weighed in that, in her understanding, it was an intersecting road and questioned whether intersections are covered under a bond; the decision was eventually made to charge the emergency repairs to LOCIP and seek approval from the Common Council.

Reached for comment, Mayor Nocera said that Manning was upfront in confirming he made the changes to the invoices and that the city’s auditor conducted a review of Public Works expenditures and “found no other discrepancies.” 

“The investigation found no evidence of improper motive or personal gain, and there was no loss or misappropriation of city funds,” Nocera said in an email. “The modifications occurred as a response to a backlog of invoices and an effort to get the city’s vendors paid. Although it was a mistake, it was a well-intentioned one.”

However, the emails and investigation point to larger and long-standing problems within Middletown’s Public Works Department, which has struggled to hang onto a director over the past five years. 

According to emails, the city was not only having difficulty paying invoices, but also nearly missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in state grant money because the city missed the April 1, 2024, deadline to submit their certification to the Office of Policy and Management to receive Local Capital Improvement Program (LOCIP) bond funds from the state. City officials did receive those funds after they received an email from OPM alerting them that they had only a few days left before the $485,000 would be forfeited.

Similarly, another email, more than a year later, from Gomes to Nocera and Peterson outlining her concerns with how Manning has handled the city’s finances, states, “LOCIP reimbursement of over $670,000 was not requested until I insisted on reconciling the accounts. A portion has been received, but funds are still outstanding without a reasonable explanation being provided to leadership.”

In another March 10, 2025, email from Gomes to Manning, Gomes indicates that the city’s sanitation district is facing a large deficit. “At this point, Sanitation is in significant rough shape,” Gomes wrote, noting that they were on course for a $386,000 deficit. “I am not privy to whether you have grants that will support this deficit; however, if you do not, this deficit will deplete your fund balance by the end of this [fiscal year]. THIS IS ALARMING TO ME.”

Middletown’s Common Council voted to end the city’s controversial Save As You Throw food scrap and recycling program, which required those living in the sanitation district to buy different colored bags and separate their food scraps, after it was determined – by Manning, according to emails – that the initial reports of the program’s success were inaccurate.

Nocera says that his administration “is taking a number of steps, the most important of which is continuing our efforts to find and retain a permanent director and deputy director of the Public Works Department and to restore the department to full staffing levels.”

“In the course of the investigation, it became clear that this is perhaps the greatest contributing factor in all of this,” Nocera said. “Mr. Manning has returned to his original duties as Chief Management Analyst, and I am personally working with him and the Director of Finance weekly to ensure we have a better process, although no process can work well without enough staff to execute it.”

Peterson, who was chief of staff under Middletown Mayor Benjamin Florsheim and was heading up the Public Works department, resigned in November and was recently hired as acting chief of staff for newly elected Hamden Mayor Nick Sendroff, pending town council approval.

“We will immediately face tough fiscal challenges, and Bobbye’s knowledge of multiple departments will be extremely helpful,” Sendroff said in a press release. “Middletown has done a great job of navigating its town-gown (sic) relationship with Wesleyan University, and I expect she will be a tremendous asset as we continue to build successful partnerships with Quinnipiac University.” 

“I plan to continue working with the Common Council to bring the department up to full staffing levels and to hire a permanent director and deputy director,” Nocera said.

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