Is there any good reason for a board to adopt a policy that calls for it to do what its members say they are already doing? Saugerties village trustee Andrew Zink proposed such a policy, which calls for the village to provide a variety of information on request from trustees, at the board’s regular meeting on Monday, August 5. “The purpose of this policy is to clarify the right of financial access of the Saugerties mayor and trustees upon their elections and subsequent swearing in or appointments to the village board,” the policy states. “As managers of the village budget, the mayor and trustees require full access to all financial documents in order to properly execute their role of oversight and accountability.”
The policy lists ten types of financial records, including bank statements and reconciliations, any contracts the village is engaged in, income statements, cash-flow statements, bills and income received, bond information documents, proof of payments made, budgetary documents, debt-related document and contact information of individuals working institutions who have a financial relationship with the Village of Saugerties.
“I’ve had many people, since our last budget, asking me various questions,” Zink said. “For instance, ‘How much debt does the village have? What accounts are there? Where does most of the money go?’ Some of these questions I don’t have an answer to. So I submitted a request for village bank statements, general ledger for the past fiscal year, trial balances and the financial reports from the state comptroller, which you can download from the state.”
“I’m very glad to hear that all those requests will be honored,” said Zink. “Generally it’s good financial policy to have all your financial procedures in writing, which is why I decided to draft the Saugerties Financial Information Policy Number One.”
Zink moved to adopt the policy and trustee Donald Hackett seconded the motion and said that “anything we ask for, we should get.”
Trustee Terry Parisian questioned the need for immediate adoption of the policy. “At this point I don’t even know if we have an SOP [Standard Operating Procedure] policy. Yes, it’s a good idea to have SOP’s in practice, but are there any in place? And if not, what do we need to look at to put any in place. But just to look at one piece of paper and not have any procedures for a policy manual, I think we’re ahead of the game.”
Zink said he has checked his proposal with the village attorney and he said it was OK, but Parisian insisted that it was not necessary to pass a policy for something “that really isn’t an issue.”
Village Treasurer Paula Kerbert said she believes there is something in the village code that pertains to the issue, but she was not sure exactly what it was.
Zink said the board should “consider the attitude of the public around passing a financial access and transparency law.”
Deputy mayor Jeannine Mayer, who chaired the meeting in the absence of mayor Bill Murphy, said she agrees there’s nothing wrong with putting the policy in writing. “However we’ve just been shown this now, like five minutes ago. I would like to table this until next meeting and have everyone be able to digest it. Parisian seconded the motion to table the original motion.
“If we have something in place and we’re not sure what it is right now, maybe we should find out what that is before we act on Andrew’s proposal,” said trustee Brian Martin.
Trustee Vincent Buono said he doesn’t like the implication of the proposal. “We have never had any problems with access to information,” he said. “The mayor is not here, and I’m sure he would like to weigh in on it. You have access to anything you want without this; it can wait, in my opinion, until the next meeting with the mayor and if we all agree then, we can pass it.”
The motion to table the proposal until the next meeting passed 3-2, with Zink and Hackett voting against it.
Later in the week, Zink said he plans to bring the policy up again at the next board meeting on Monday, August 19. “People said they wanted to be sure there wasn’t already something on the books and we’ve found there isn’t,” he said. The only change may be that he is considering recommending that it be added to the employee information book, but the motion itself would not be modified.
Join the family! 
