The trials of Erin Stewart.

By now, two days after The Hartford Courant’s story exposing Erin Stewart’s profligate use of New Britain’s credit card while she was mayor, some current and former city employees will have considered their risks and taken steps to protect their own interests.

Despite Stewart’s claims, there were no audits of the office supplies budget for her office. The audits Stewart repeatedly points to as exonerating her were conducted only on the state and federal grants the city received. Each year, the Department of Finance provided city officials with an “Annual Comprehensive Financial Report.” That is not an audit. And it was provided by the same people who approved hundreds of thousands of dollars of dodgy charges by Stewart.

Here is the link to years of state and federal grant audits and the financial reports. Look at them yourself.

The annual financial report includes these aspirations:

“We believe that the City’s internal accounting controls adequately safeguard assets and provide reasonable assurance of proper recording of financial transactions.”

“Additionally, the Finance Department continues to monitor expenses throughout the fiscal year in an effort to keep costs of running the City down”

Those are not audits.

Invoices of Stewart’s expenses are designated as “Office Supplies” by the Finance Department. The same people who claimed to monitor expenses approved a dizzying number of personal purchases by Stewart and put themselves at risk each time they paid those faux office supplies invoices–and many purchases were delivered to Stewart’s home.

There were city employees who quit over the year-long scheme to pay Stewart’s growing personal expenses. Stewart’s office supplies budget frequently exceeded its $10,000 allocation, In FY 2024 reached over $18,000.

Another source of trouble for Stewart lurks in the records of the Community Foundation of Greater New Britain. Stewart’s Mayor’s Trophy Charitable Fund is a Community Foundation of Greater New Britain Donor Advised Fund. The Community Foundation administers the Mayor’s Trophy fund, saving it from having to file some non-profit documents each year–most notably a Form 990 tax return. That’s a public document that discloses details of donations, income, and expenses. To borrow a phrase, a lot of people are talking about how Stewart spent that money. She and the Community Foundation of Greater New Britain should make a complete disclosure of the fund’s income and payments since it was created.

Stewart may have check writing authority over the fund.

An ongoing course of activity like what is emerging from New Britain records puts not only the primary actor in jeopardy but also the those who facilitated it. This is the moment when someone who approved the payments of Stewart’s expenses as office supplies authorizes a representative to approach law enforcement authorities to offer information for an immunity deal. First one in often gets the best deal.

This is a time to consider one’s position. Whatever happens in Stewart’s campaign for the Republican nomination for governor, “the office supplies”–like diapers and makeup–are not going away.

Published May 12, 2026.