According to a Monroe County, NY employee, County officials are keeping a recent break-in at the offices for Social Services, as quiet as they can, so much so that they aren't even notifying clients to inform them that their personal information, including social security numbers, may have been compromised during the break-in and vandalism.
Tuesday evening I was contacted by the employee, who asked to remain anonymous.
The employee informed me that sometime between Friday evening and Saturday morning, someone broke into the Monroe County Social Services offices located at 691 St. Paul Blvd., in Rochester, NY.
"There is something that happened over the weekend that was not reported in the news that is important for the public to be aware of", said the employee.
"The county office building at 691 St. Paul Blvd. was broken into over the weekend, sometime Friday night or Saturday morning. The person broke in through a window and vandalized and stole things from the first and second floor. Locked cabinets were broken into."
The employee says that taxpayers should know that the county's security measures are very inadequate.
"The lax security measures at the county building made is so the break in wasn't even discovered until a worker went in sometime Saturday morning to get something from her desk," the employee said.
"She waited until she returned home to notify her boss as there was no security at the building."
The county employee says workers were notified of the break in via email.
"We were sent an e-mail to our work email sometime over the weekend, as most workers do not have access to their work email at home, the vast majority did not find out about this until Monday morning.
As a Monroe County worker, the employee says the way county officials are trying to keep it quiet, combined with how officials are not informing clients of the security breach, is what bothers them the most.
"What bothers me is it seems like the county is trying to sweep this under the rug, they seem like they don't want anyone to find out. While it doesn't appear that anyone's personal information was stolen, the people or persons who broke in compromised the personal information of many of our clients. None of whom have been notified. There were many papers left out with social security numbers, birth dates, addresses, etc,, all over them. No one knows for sure what is missing."
According to the employee, the County does not have a security system in the building.
"The county does not have an alarm system on this building, they do not have a security guard stationed there over night or on the weekend, no one would have even known if one person hadn't gone in on Saturday to grab something from their desk."
Interesting.
Something tells me that the fact that the private and personal information, including social security numbers of persons, which may have been compromised during the break in, belong to low-income persons on public assistance, has alot to do with the way Monroe County officials are keeping it on the low, and not even notifying clients to alert them.
A non-chalant, "Who cares?" attitude.
Monroe County, NY Executive Cheryl DiNolfo
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