Mayor Thomas on school district lawsuit against Comptroller

MOUNT VERNON – Mayor Richard Thomas said Wednesday that the City Council must hold Comptroller Deborah Reynolds accountable for her failure to remit collected tax dollars to the public school district and for withholding financial information from school officials.

“The facts continue to mount in favor of removing Comptroller Reynolds from office,” said Mayor Thomas. “There’s a mountain of evidence demonstrating willful obstruction and the City Council is allowing reckless Reynolds to threaten the health, safety and education systems of the city.”

Mayor Thomas reacted to schools Superintendent Kenneth Hamilton’s Wednesday morning press conference in which he stated that the district is still missing about $14.3 million in tax money that Comptroller Reynolds should have collected on its behalf.

To compound her failure to remit tax dollars to the school district, Comptroller Reynolds is withholding remittance information that allows school officials to determine in which accounts they should place the tax dollars the Comptroller’s office is remitting.

“We have no way of knowing whether such payments should be allocated to the current or previous fiscal year, the library or interest payments,” said Dr. Hamilton. “According to our outside auditors, the lack of remittance guidance can and will delay the completion of the district’s legally required annual audit.”

Hamilton also described how Comptroller Reynolds has failed to return the district’s calls and refused to accept letters from the district seeking information, much like she behaves with many of the City’s commissioners.

Hamilton held a press conference Wednesday because the state Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by the district against Reynolds earlier this year. The case was dismissed because Reynolds supplied information sought in the lawsuit after it was filed.

However, school officials said they will renew their legal efforts against the Comptroller.

“The MVCSD disagrees with the decision and the Board of Education has authorized our attorneys to make a motion to reargue the case,” said Hamilton. “We are confident that we will be successful at this level.”

The missing $14.3 million in school taxes is the latest example of malfeasance by Comptroller Reynolds. In February City Inspector General Charles Knapp issued a report on Comptroller Reynolds’ failure to pay the city’s bills and her efforts to hide the city’s finances from her fellow elected officials.

Knapp’s findings of improper or unauthorized conduct included:

• Reynolds’ attempt to move the city’s finances from a computer-based recordkeeping system to a paper-voucher-based system that will prevent other city officials from monitoring how or if bills are being paid.

• Reynolds’ attempt to move the city’s computer-based recordkeeping system to a cloud-based platform where only she would have access and signing a six-figure contract for the migration without knowledge or approval from the City Council or the Board of Estimate and Contract.

Mount Vernon Management Services Commissioner Brett Erasmus, who has monitored Reynolds’ nonpayment of bills since the summer, has been a target of Reynolds’ efforts to prevent him from reviewing city finance records.

On Feb. 14 he wrote to Mayor Richard Thomas warning about a lack of financial reporting by the Comptroller’s Office, the 2019 budget and changes to purchasing procedures, among other serious issues.

Over several months, Reynolds’ failure to pay the city’s bills or release money for sewer repairs and the renovation of Memorial Field has threatened the city’s finances. The city also experienced garbage-collection disruptions due to Reynolds’ failure to pay the bills.

The city’s economy has been hurt by Reynolds’ inaction because local vendors that provided services to the city have gone unpaid for months.

A copy of Knapp’s report is posted at:

http://cmvny.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/IG.Report.02-25-19.pdf

A copy of Erasmus’ letter is posted at:

http://cmvny.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Attachment_2G.pdf