Calling on the Attorney General
Dear Attorney General James,
Mount Vernon is under siege. For more than three years, City Comptroller Deborah Reynolds has operated above the purview of the City of Mount Vernon with impunity. As Mayor, I’m reaching out to formally request direct intervention from the Public Integrity Bureau within your office. The fate and future of Mount Vernon is at stake.
Ms. Reynolds began her abuse of power by sealing off the financial and purchasing system (MUNIS) from the executive and legislative branches with the installation of an illegal firewall in her office, illegally wire transferring money to her personal attorney, and has essentially operated as a rogue agency within City Hall. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has refused much needed financial resources from HUD that could be allocated for re-opening Mount Vernon and ensuring public safety & health of our residents.
In January of 2020, I had a brief encounter with Comptroller DiNapoli at the State of the State address of Governor Cuomo. I was elated to hear his enthusiasm to come to Mount Vernon and audit the finances of our city and to improve the financial operations. Around February, I began to engage with Deputy State Comptroller Elliot Auerbach who put together a team to come and complete a policy and oversight audit. This audit revealed the need for increased legislation to hold the Comptroller accountable, to provide financial reports, transfer monies received from HUD, pay invoices and adopt policies that were more in line with the NYS Comptroller office guidelines and GAAP.
On August 5th and 12th the City Council legislated several ordinances to hold the Comptroller more accountable and to ensure greater financial transparency and partnership. At the time of this writing she has not abided by any of them. As the Mayor and the Council, we lack enforcement powers and are relying on the State to assist us in stopping this damaging behavior, demonstrated by the Comptroller. The State Comptroller’s office has been in here for over 9 months, I am quite confident that our Comptroller, like she does us every day, has slow walked the State Comptroller office with documentation that has been requested over and over. I am quite sure that the State Comptroller and Attorney General have subpoena powers which exceed ours in Mount Vernon. I am not sure if you have utilized these powers, if not why, if you have had, has she complied? If she hasn’t, what is the State ready to do to advance the concerns of our Comptroller’s negligence and malfeasance.
Instead of operating with the transparency that befits her office, the Comptroller personally accepts, receipts, deposits and reconciles money cloaked in secrecy. For more than 35 months, she has refused to provide any financial reporting to either the legislative branch or executive branch. As a result, our City operates in financial darkness, and is unaware of the financial impact from COVID, nor are we capable of forecasting an accurate financial recovery plan. Frankly, Ms. Reynolds has failed to carry out her duties as an elected official and is instead causing Mount Vernon irreparable harm.
Additionally, the Comptroller is spending unauthorized money on her personal attorneys outside of the view of the Board of Estimate and City Council, she has installed illegal firewalls to block outside access to the city’s internal records using MUNIS, and she has entered into illegal contracts with vendors, all outside the purview of governmental oversight.
Furthermore, the Comptroller has shown her interference to provide this access to any members of the public and continues to obstruct the day to day governance of our city. I have asked the Westchester County District Attorney’s office to utilize the Public Integrity Bureau to investigate and now asking the Attorney General’s office to do the same. I call on your Public Integrity Bureau to look into the City of Mount Vernon’s finances and to prosecute to the full extent of the law any crimes committed by the Comptroller or employees of the city in regard to corruption, fraud or any other crimes. We do so under the suspicion that our Comptroller has violated the following NY Penal Laws:
· §195.00 — Official Misconduct
· §195.05 — Obstructing governmental administration in the second degree
· §195.07 — Obstructing governmental administration in the first degree
· §195.15 — Obstructing firefighting operations
· §195.16 — Obstructing emergency medical services
· §195.20 — Defrauding the government
Here are some of her most egregious actions:
● Failure to accept tax payments from residents for months. It takes months for these payments to be accepted and processed.
● Failed to accurately budget for health insurance in the prior years, we are now 7.2 million behind in payments to the NYS Health Insurance Program.
● Rejected 4 million dollars in invoices that have been submitted for 2020 that have gone unpaid incurring potential lawsuits for non-payment and hampering the delivery of service.
● Failed to pay reimbursements for paving, holding up 2.7 million dollars in CHIPS money over an unpaid $370,000 bill.
● Failed to process step increases for CSEA and Teamsters and all of our unions have been without a contract for 2018, 2019, 2020
● Failure to follow and cooperate with the US Department of Justice and NY Department of Environment Conservation Consent Decrees.
● Failed to comply with ordinances, recommended by the State Comptroller’s Office through their audit, passed by the City Council and Board of Estimate & Contract on August 5 and 12.
● Refused to allow our external auditors access to perform testing needed to complete the City’s 2016 audit, which will play a critical role in re-establishing our bond rating.
● Failed to provide monthly, quarterly or annual financial reports to city officials for 36 months.
● Failed to process transfer taxes, which caused NYS title companies to send a letter threatening to stop doing business in Mount Vernon. This unprecedented action endangers local homeowners, buyers and realtors.
● Failed to comply with legislation passed by City Council and Board of Estimate & Contract
● Failed to comply with ordinances, recommended by the State Comptroller’s Office through their audit, passed by the City Council and Board of Estimate
● Failure to disperse millions of dollars of HUD/URA money in a timely manner.
● Failed to sign off the voucher for the NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services GIVE grant for $220,000. We are currently awaiting reimbursement for $183,000 that we are set to lose because she won’t process.
● Failed to process school taxes, causing the school district to take over the collection of school taxes and costing the City of Mount Vernon 600k+ in revenue.
● Failed to pay public safety personnel. Blocked the hiring of eleven firefighters in Oct/Nov 2019 because a family friend was not selected for the force. We are dangerously below national fire standards.
● Failure to follow civil service law. She has refused to produce certified payroll and has been given 47 payroll exception notices by our Local Civil Service Office that she has ignored. Additionally, she has refused to implement approved step increases for our civil services employees, in accordance with bargaining agreements, many of whom are on the frontlines during the COVID-19 pandemic, for the last two years.
● Failed to comply with federal contract requirements related to 666 funds, which is a requirement of the US Department of Justice. She has refused to release these 666 funds desperately needed for the purchase of patrol vehicles, surveillance equipment and body cameras. In an age of police reform, these are critical tools needed to improve public safety.
● Failure to process payments and reimbursements which has caused our Veterans Service Agency to lose its accreditation. Our nation’s heroes deserve so much more than to be insulted by the inaction of our Comptroller.
● Failed to accept funds owed and paid to the city. Turning away hundreds of thousands of dollars from revenue generating departments, including parking tickets, a $482,000 sewer bill in 2019 from the school district and money from PILOTS tax payments ($183,000) and various departmental revenues.
● Failed to transfer nearly 12 million dollars of federal money from HUD and the URA to the City for critical social needs.
● Failed to pay for labor counsel bills, which has caused the City of Mount Vernon to lose its labor counsel at a time where potentially costly grievances are being brought up.
● Refuses to follow contractual obligations for civil service employees including, but not limited to; Overtime not being paid to Public Workers employees, Firefighters, and Police Officers not being paid at their proper salaries. CSEA and Teamsters have not received their step increases in two years and none of our unions has received an executed contract since she took office in 2018
We are asking for the state to quickly advance and utilize the tools at their disposal to help bring Mount Vernon’s financial house in order. We are on the precipice of passing a budget that will eliminate 33 positions that are vacant and layoff an additional 60 personnel at minimum. This initial group of 93 layoffs includes, 30 police officers, 25 firefighters, 19 DPW workers, and administrative staff. Clearly, this is a budget that will devastate Mount Vernon’s ability to delivery public safety and health services.
We are imploring you at this time to insert yourself into these matters in a more forceful way. We believe we can utilize 8 million in our fund balance reserve, but we can’t confirm this with our comptroller and local banks. It would be irresponsible to decide to eliminate critical services, raise taxes at double digit levels and layoff people because we lack financial information to make these decisions.
Attorney General James, I know that COVID, Criminal Justice Reform and other issues have taken so much of your time, upended our daily lives, devastated our economy, communities and thrown us all into crisis mode as we lead through unchartered waters. What is unique to Mt. Vernon is that in the midst of a pandemic and social our financial leader is working against us and not with her elected partners to shepherd the community through this crisis
I implore you as the Attorney General to intervene swiftly to help us identify this critical information. I implore you to use your subpoena powers to stop the suffering of Mount Vernon residents from the Comptroller who is incompetent, immature, and displays blatant malfeasance similar to the levels of Donald Trump, a man you stood up to vociferously. We are partners in government, and I am asking you to proceed with haste as this situation is dire, not political.
In Service,
Shawyn Patterson-Howard
Mayor, City of Mount Vernon
