A suburban city run by one of many Empire State’s longest serving Democrats left tens of millions in tax {dollars} uncollected, together with property taxes that had been due way back to 1967, a bombshell new audit discovered.
The city of Greenburgh, which has been ruled by Dem politician Paul Feiner for 35 years, has $2.6 million in unpaid parking tickets courting again at the very least three years, nonetheless has former city staff on the payroll, and used solely a fraction of cash earmarked for a brand new courthouse, accounting agency EFPR Group discovered.
“I discover it unconscionable that city taxpayers are actually going to be requested to pay for a courthouse that they’ve already paid for,” Francis Sheehan, a member of the all-Democrat Greenburgh City Board that commissioned the audit, instructed impartial reporter David McKay Wilson, who first reported the findings.
“Now we don’t have the cash we’d like for the courthouse,” Sheehan stated. “Paul is the city’s chief monetary officer, and the examine confirmed that the city funds had been extraordinarily mismanaged on the expense of taxpayers.”
Feiner, now working for his 18th time period, was first elected in 1991 to function supervisor in Greenburgh, one of many state’s largest cities, encompassing six of Westchester County’s most upscale villages.
A unusual determine, the 70-year-old Feiner sometimes rides his bicycle to and from work, runs among the city’s enterprise from his ailing mom’s Scarsdale dwelling and as soon as began a town-sponsored courting web site.
In response to the audit by EFPR Group, a outstanding Rochester-based agency, he was asleep on the wheel.
The agency, which reviewed city funds from 2020 to 2023, discovered that $29.4 million in property taxes stay unpaid as of 2024 — together with tens of millions in tax payments that date again nearly 60 years.
Among the many findings is mismanagement of funds for the city’s deliberate new courthouse and police station.
The audit discovered that $39.5 million was put aside for the brand new prison justice complicated, however as a result of the money was thrown into the final fund within the price range as a substitute of its personal account, solely $7.4 million has been used for the venture.
“By not truly proscribing the funds in these years, the city was ready to make use of them to plug different price range gaps 12 months over 12 months by reappropriating the funds meant for the courthouse,” the audit stated. “By the use of reference, this venture continues to be within the planning and design phases.”
Water payments additionally stay unpaid, with $3.1 million overdue by at the very least 60 days and as a lot as $125,000 in penalties for delinquent funds, which had been suspended through the COVID pandemic, stay unpaid as a result of the city by no means lifted the waiver after the pandemic, the audit stated.
Different findings embody shoddy record-keeping of contingency, or emergency, price range funds, former city workers that had been by no means purged from payroll data, and 24 former staffers who’re not on the job however nonetheless have entry to accounting and operations applications.
The audit doesn’t counsel that ex-employees had been nonetheless being paid — fairly, it was cited for example of poor record-keeping and administration of city data.
The city’s monetary insurance policies had been final revised in 2014, and its “Monetary Handbook” was final up to date in 1999.
In a response to The Publish on Sunday, Feiner maintained there have been no shock findings within the audit, and stated steps had been already taken to handle any points, together with the hiring of an out of doors agency to gather overdue taxes and three upcoming auctions to unload foreclosed properties.
He referred to as it curious that the audit’s assessment stopped at 2023 monetary data.
Feiner additionally slammed the city board for a “politicized” monetary assessment that he stated is supposed to break his possibilities at one other re-election bid this 12 months — to not defend city tax {dollars}. Feiner is dealing with a major problem after the native Democratic Social gathering endorsed one other candidate, Barry McGoey, over the longtime city boss.
“The city board’s motivation, I consider, for the audit was merely to ‘win factors’ within the Democratic major, as not [new] info was realized,” he stated.
“You will need to perceive that the present city bard has organized towards my re-election by unanimously supporting a candidate chosen by the Democratic Social gathering management, and my independence has at all times been tough for them.”
Feiner added {that a} latest exterior auditor lately reviewed Greenburgh’s funds and located them sound — noting that the city has an AAA bond ranking, considered one of only a handful of different municipal governments within the area with that designation.
