You're listening to WAMC's Midday Magazine. Late last month, we sat down with Troy Mayor Carmella Mantello as she marked a year in office. Now, the Republican has checked off a major item on her to-do list: after roughly five months, the city has a new comptroller. Mantello announced this week that Jack Krokos (Krow-kiss) will serves as comptroller. In July, the former comptroller, Dylan Spring, resigned after mounting pressure from the Republican-controlled city council to deliver quarterly financial reports. Since then, the administration has worked with several outside accounting firms to deliver those reports to the council, spending more than $260,000 on the services. An incomplete report was delivered to the council in October with Mayor Mantello's budget proposal. The Republican says Krokos’ “knowledge, experience, and deep commitment to the public” will be invaluable to the city. However, minority Democrats have issued a statement expressing their concern over Krokos' lack of municipal experience. I spoke with Mantello about the decision to hire Krokos.
In our interviews Samantha, we interviewed retired comptrollers. We interviewed two present, one comptroller, one deputy comptroller. We interviewed at least a dozen or so different people. Some three times, some four times, because this position is so critical. What I've learned Samantha, yes, you need some municipal you need a strong background, but more importantly, you have to want to learn an archaic system and at the same time implement a state-of-the-art system. To find someone that had that energy and the willingness to put in. Some weeks we know it's going to be 60, potentially 70, hour work weeks. At the end of the day, it was, ‘well, I'll work for you part time.’ That was a present comptroller. Another one went through three interviews, and then at the end of the day, said, ‘you know what? This is just too much for me.’ So, the pool, as I've talked about a lot, Samantha, is so small now people are not entering accounting and CPAs, things like that, and it's very difficult to find, let alone the right person, find a comptroller. Other municipalities are struggling. BST CO. has lost a number of their accountants. The State Comptroller, when I spoke to them to give them various updates, they've asked us, how are you doing? They're having a tough time. So, I think at some point, on a totally different level, we have to look at potentially shared services throughout the state. Because I know and I know other municipalities have identified that this is a real shortfall and a missing piece because there's so many more state regulations on filing records, etc. So, it's just not an occupation like it was maybe several years ago. But to find Jack, we're very fortunate. He was being courted by a county, not Rensselaer, but another county and two other municipalities. So many of the people I've interviewed have also been doing the circle because other municipalities, like I said, are in need of account comptroller. So, you know, we kept coming back to Jack.
Krokos is a graduate of SUNY Albany with an MBA, served as a town councilman in nearby Sand Lake. Do you see this as a benefit to doing the Comptroller's work?
I most certainly do his knowledge of town budgets certainly brings a lot to the table. He also oversaw the Budget Committee. His references couldn’t not boast about his intelligence. He is you honestly, what we've learned through the three interviews, someone who strives for perfection. He we're just so fortunate to find him as supervisor of Sand Lake would rely on Jack to not only obviously be the eyes and ears on the legislative side, and, you know, continue the accountability and the checks and balances, but he relied on Jack for the budget, he told me that he would call jack on various issues, on departments, they are building a new park, and Jack was a big part of that. So, saying that the references were very point blank, and he's just a real catch, and I'm just so glad that we did the interviews diligently. We didn't rush to hire to a person and he chose us. That's the beauty, too. He had other opportunities. So he was in the private sector, and I know other municipalities were interviewing him. And so, he chose us, not just we chose him. So, a mutual find a win, win, and he's going to be great, not only obviously, for our needs, but more importantly, to people of Troy.
You mentioned earlier that the city is working to replace its old accounting system. So, what does this mean for the comptroller's office in the meantime, and what are the benefits of this new system?
Yeah, so we have already had Tyler [Technologies] in the office. I cannot express enough what this new accounting system is going to do for us. It's not only going to overhaul the numbers part of it Samantha, it's also our payroll. We literally are inputting manually our payroll. We are on a paper payroll from the 1980’s, that's unacceptable. So not only are we going to implement Kronos, which is the timekeeping, but the accounting system will have a piece of that, and the payroll system that will have a complete overhaul. And you must know when the present system, as you know, KVS. When we asked various folks if they even knew what KVS was, they looked at us with a blank stare. It's from the 1980’s, it's archaic, and even BST Co. had to learn how to do it. And as you recall, ProNexus tried to change it. And that's where things started going backwards. So, Jack is going to be trained by BST Co. to learn KVS and at the same time, simultaneously implement the new accounting system and to find someone that had the, let's just say not just the ability, but the desire, It's a challenge. And Jack wanted that challenge. So, we're super fortunate, like I said, to have landed him, and like I said for him to choose us, it says a lot about the City of Troy.
The council's minority is expressing concern over the decision. Do you think they have any reason to doubt your administration's choice for comptroller?
Well, it's unfortunate, because they put out statements, releases. They establish opinions before even meeting candidates, before even learning what the issue is, before looking at the particular issue, whatever it may be. And I must say, people are so tired of politics, you and I know that, from the Federal on down to the local. And people want to see the streets clean. They want to see their neighborhoods safer. They want to see their taxes stabilized. They want to see their tax dollars going towards long term investments like the ice rink, the Knickerbacker Pool, our parks, quality of life. So, for the minority to continuously, you know, just play politics instead of, you know, putting the people first is disappointing, but that's their prerogative. And we're just going to keep grinding. We're going to keep moving forward, and we're on a mission to really put Troy on the map. And like I said, 10,20, 30-years from now, people will look back and say, look at the vision of those folks.
And lastly, will 2024 finances be submitted on time?
Yes, yes, yes, we already have BSP. We're closing the books, finally, on 2023 which was a massive undertaking, when your Comptroller, you know, leaves entries not done from the beginning of 2023, the books not closed. So, for us to be in the position we're in, it took a Herculean effort, not just BST Co., obviously, but our comptroller's office, our deputy mayor, our Corp. Council is helping out. It's an all-in, one team, but that's what Jack is going to bring to the table. He's going to bring leadership in the comptroller's office. We have great people there Samantha, but they have another leader. And I told you before they each had a piece of the budget, but no one knew how to put those pieces together. Jack is going to overhaul how the comptroller's office works so everyone knows what each other are doing, because, god forbid, someone who is sick or has to go out on leave, we need a bench, and that's what we're going to build in the comptroller's office, which has not had a bench in 20, 30-years.
