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February 22, 2012
To the Editor:
I have read the State Comptroller's Audit Report on the village and am angered and enraged at the long-term lack of financial controls and oversight by the majority of our elected officials and the apparent lack of records management and bookkeeping expertise within our village government. Each and every village taxpayer should read this report. http://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/audits/villages/2012/cornwallonhudson.pdf Something has to change!
- The DPW building financing process was a mess! The village inexplicably overpaid $207K for the construction of the DPW building and over $300K was unnecessarily bonded.
- The total interest cost to the village for the DPW bond is $387,000, which would be considerably less had that extra $300K not been included.
- Basic common sense accounting and fund approval procedures were never put in place.
- Over $5 million in fund transfers were done without village board approval or acknowledgement of the transactions from the bank.
- The village experienced a computer system crash in 2010 and lost a vast amount of critical records. Have we ever heard of backing up our computers?
- The NY State Comptroller’s report concludes and documents that the village board did not conduct due diligence with regards to the planning, permitting and construction of the DPW building.
Despite the current Mayor's assertion that he found the audit's content "inflammatory and irresponsible," there is no way to sugarcoat the facts. The total of all the wasted money the State Comptroller's Audit Report uncovered and we taxpayers have been fleeced for amounts to well over $500,000! Unless we change the way that the village government does business, we, the taxpayers, will continue to pay the price for this kind of financial mismanagement for years to come.
Robert N. Anderson
Cornwall-on-Hudson
Comments:
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Do any former members of the Village board have nice, new, expensive homes located on prime real estate, I wonder...?
posted by Stephen Sywak on 02/22/12 at 12:32 PM
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Yep - what a mess. I don't give a hoot about someone's party affiliation or their general background as a gov't "professional". What I DO care about is their honesty, integrity, and whether they should be trusted. Who do you trust more? Those who just want to move full speed ahead and not pursue the mistakes of the past, or those who are asking questions, probing, and trying to get it right? Meanwhile - either approach is costing us lot's of money. Someone made out on this whole deal - and it wasn't we the tax payers.
posted by Chuck Trella on 02/22/12 at 4:33 PM
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What I find curious is why Edsall and Kane methodically blocked our past mayor and Barbara from truth finding in the DPW mess to an independent lawyer.
posted by J Buescher on 02/22/12 at 9:05 PM
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