The city of Rensselaer has come under fire in a New York State Comptroller's audit.
The audit by Comptroller Tom DiNapoli found that lack of oversight and changes in administration and elected officials contributed to financial missteps and inaccuracies, irregularities that went undetected for years.
DiNapoli spokesman Mark Johnson says Rensselaer's failure to file annual financial reports with the Comptroller's office triggered the audit.
“The main findings of the audit were that the city officials did not maintain complete, accurate or accounting records," said Johnson. "And this goes back for a number of years. Generally, we found bank reconciliations were not prepared. There were differences in interfund transfers and ledger balances were inaccurate, and independent audit reports were not issued in a timely manner.”
Johnson says reports the city’s common council received were not sufficient to allow the panel to effectively manage the city’s financial operations and capital projects.
Rensselaer Mayor Mike Stammel concedes the municipality's books have been out of whack for some time.
“When I took over in 2020, January 1st, 2020, the city was five years behind, in their reporting audits to the comptroller's office, and then there was no controller who was working at the time, or at least showed up for work. I had to try to find people that were qualified to do so for the money that the city wanted to pay, which was very difficult. So it's taken a while to get people on board in order to correct the past audits. The recordkeeping was terrible, because there were no records kept in the past administration. When I walked in, there was a pile of papers in the middle of the floor,” Stammel said.
The Republican, says his office is working with an outside agency to bring the books up to date. He's often butted heads with the seven-member Democratic-led Common Council over various issues.
Council President John DeFrancesco says the city desperately needs to get its finances squared away. "In the past, we worked on putting a new system in place, new rules to help alleviate this. The mayor, come in hasn't really used it. Things aren't being entered. There's no communication between the mayor and us. We're kept out of the loop on everything. We’re given budget performance reports that are either inaccurate or don't have numbers or whatever with them, and it's just we don't know what's going on,” said DeFrancesco.
Stammel says he's tried to sync with the council but the panel rebuffs his efforts. “I can't tell you how many times I've written letters to the common council president. Have spoken in front of the common council, sat down with the council, or the council president and/or the council members for they have committees as well, just to sit down with them to go over some of the things. And they're no show. They don't show up for budget meetings, they don't show up for contract negotiations, and then they sit back and do nothing but throw darts. Yeah, my office is open, willing and ready to work with them any way I can, and any finances that the city has is all approved by the council. There's no spending done without their approval," Stammel said.
Yet Stammel and DeFrancesco both say they're willing to work together and will be meeting soon. “We're working well with the comptroller's office, with taking the advice, the comptroller had some points of interest that they like to see changed. We're going to make those positive changes so that the next report even comes out better," said Stammel.
