Hurley’s town board has agreed to conduct a financial audit of town government for 2022 and 2023. The resolution passed 4-0, with councilmember Gregory Simpson absent.
The resolution cited significant overspending, persistent misuse of dedicated capital funds to pay for operating funds (including for attorneys’ fees and private contractors), delayed payment of town bills, dismissal of an accounting agency without adequate resources to replace it, lack of detailed financial records for a six-month period in 2023, a reduction in Hurley’s fund reserves combined with misleading information showing account surpluses, and the failure of two outside independent accounting sources to reconcile Hurley’s financial records.
“This is something that’s very disturbing,” town supervisor Mike Boms said. “It turns out that there were checks written in 2023 that were never cashed until 2024, and was not included in the 2023 AFR.” All of a sudden, the deficit between what was appropriated and what was revenue was up to $300,000.
There were other issues including missing vouchers which needed to be signed before payment is made.
“We saw a lot of vouchers where you need three signatures in order to pay the bill,” Boms said. “A few have none. Some have one. Some have two. I’m talking about a large quantity. It’s absurd — to put it mildly — that something like this is being done. This should be Bookkeeping 101. This is sloppy.”
Senior account clerk Wendy Trojak warned the upcoming analysis would not be quick. “We are going to need bodies to locate these vouchers, to research all of this stuff, and it’s going to take time,” she said.
“So just realize it’s going to take a lot of manpower to do this because right now I’m personally drowning.”
Boms said the town had already spent $60,000 trying to get the 2023 budget re-created. “And we’re still trying to fix things in ’24 that weren’t necessarily done correctly. We are moving forward in a great direction.”
Former town supervisor Melinda McKnight defended her financial management. “They created a problem and wasted money but would rather blame me than accept responsibility,” McKnight said.
Since Boms took office in 2024, his administration says it had found a lack of recordkeeping and sufficient accounting irregularities that quickly swallowed what was officially a surplus at the end of 2023.
McKnight conceded delays in transitioning from a contracted accounting firm to an in-house bookkeeper caused some gaps, but said all the information would have been accessible if Boms had asked.
“I offered to help Boms in an email and he thanked me but never asked for help,” she said. “When I left office, the software was working to pay bills and run monthly reports. We were having an issue with the software not generating the year-to-date financial statements because we were still entering payroll data and deductions. This was an issue because until I took over the payroll company ADP was being paid by the accounting firm RBT.”
The way ADP initially provided the data was not provided in a way that was detailed enough to be helpful, McKnight said. “If they had persevered with the system that was well on its way to being fully functional it would have saved the taxpayers thousands of dollars each month. Instead, they fired the bookkeeper and the accounting firm Bonadio & Associates, which serves hundreds of municipalities across New York State,” she explained.
McKnight noted bills from a previous term always come in after the first of the year when one term ends and another begins.
“Bottom line is this,” she said. “I have 30 years of experience managing large budgets of $500k and above. Their narrative that I am incompetent and mismanaged finances is false, and designed to damage my reputation and defame my character. It isn’t true, and I can prove it.”
McKnight has announced her candidacy this year to regain her position as town supervisor.
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