Part 4 of a 4-Part Series
Part 1: What Is the IDA, What Are PILOTs — and Why Should You Care?
Part 2: Why Mount Vernon is Different – and Why That Matters
Part 3: Campaign Money, Conflicts, and the Machine That Runs Mount Vernon’s IDA
Part 4: A Way Forward — Oversight, Reform, and Real Accountability
The Problem Is Systemic: The Solution Must Be Too
Over the course of this series, we have documented a system that is profitable for a few and deeply corrosive for everyone else. The Mount Vernon IDA has given away $44.4 million in tax revenue over ten years: $26.7 million from schools, $13.3 million from the city, and $4.4 million from the county.
In return, Mount Vernon received low-income housing developments that generate minimal tax revenue, create no permanent jobs, and impose long-term service costs that residents and businesses outside the PILOT agreements must absorb.
We showed that the IDA’s governance is the weakest of any comparable agency in the state (Part 2). That its portfolio has been captured by residential housing rather than the industrial and commercial development it was created to promote (Part 2). That its oversight is functionally absent (projects go unchecked, PILOT payments go uncollected, state reporting goes unfiled, Parts 1 and 2). And that the political ecosystem sustaining it (campaign contributions flowing between developers and the politicians who control the IDA) ensures that internal reform is extremely unlikely (Part 3).
The question now is simple: What can actually be done?
The answer involves three interconnected strategies: state legislation that changes the rules, a proven oversight model that can be replicated, and sustained community engagement that refuses to accept the status quo.
None of these alone is sufficient. Together, they can restore accountability.
Why Local Reform Isn’t Enough
Let’s be clear about why hoping for reform from within the Mount Vernon IDA is not a strategy. The agency’s structure creates what the government watchdog group Reinvent Albany has called a “perverse incentive.” The IDA earns administrative fees from approving deals. It does not earn fees from rejecting them. The board members are appointed by the mayor with no confirmation process, no term limits, and no mandatory qualifications. The chair is the mayor herself. The agency has every financial and political reason to say yes to developers, and no structural reason to say no.
This is not a personnel problem. It is an architectural one. You could replace every person on the board tomorrow and the outcomes would likely be the same, because the incentives haven’t changed. The board exists to approve deals. That’s what it does. That’s what it will continue to do unless the rules are changed from outside.
A decade ago, the New York State Comptroller audited the Mount Vernon IDA and issued recommendations for improvement. Those recommendations were largely ignored. The same problems the Comptroller identified (weak documentation, missing records, uncollected payments, unverified job claims) persist today.
The Mount Vernon school board, to its credit, passed a resolution in 2025 affirming that “only a duly elected school board should have the authority to abate school tax revenues.” That resolution was important. It established a principle: the people responsible for educating children should have a say in whether their funding is given away.
Melinda Person, President of the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), put it simply: “Every community deserves both affordable housing and well-funded public schools, not one at the expense of the other.”
But the school board’s resolution, however principled, has no legal force. Without state law, it is a letter asking the IDA to behave differently. And the IDA has shown, repeatedly, that it is not inclined to behave differently on its own.
State Legislation That Could Change Everything
The good news is that New York’s legislature has recognized the problem. Several bills are moving through Albany that could fundamentally alter the IDA landscape, not just in Mount Vernon, but statewide.
One bill, sponsored by Sen. Shelley B. Mayer, would give county comptrollers the authority to audit IDA projects. Right now, IDAs in much of the state operate without any meaningful local audit authority looking over their shoulder. The bill has passed the state Senate unanimously twice, which signals broad recognition that IDAs need outside eyes. It now needs to move through the Assembly.
A second bill from Sen. Mayer would change the composition of IDA boards. Every IDA would have to include at least one local labor representative and either a school district superintendent or a school board representative. A version of this bill passed the Senate last year but stalled in the Assembly. It’s back this session in amended form.
If that bill becomes law, the Mount Vernon IDA’s four-member, mayor-controlled board would have to expand to include voices from labor and the school district. For the first time, the body that votes on tax giveaways affecting school revenue would include people accountable to the workers and educators most directly affected by those decisions.
A third bill, sponsored by Assemblymember Solages, would create a public, searchable database of all IDA subsidies across New York State. Right now, IDA data is scattered across individual agency websites and local records, when it’s reported at all. There is no single place where a resident, journalist, or researcher can look up how much their IDA has given away, to whom, and whether the promised benefits materialized. Transparency is the baseline. Without it, accountability is impossible.
A fourth bill, from Sen. Jeremy Cooney, would address how PILOT properties are treated under the property tax cap. The underlying problem matters for cities like Mount Vernon: PILOT-heavy portfolios constrain the city’s ability to raise revenue from non-PILOT properties. The system doesn’t just reduce revenue from subsidized properties; it limits the city’s ability to make up the difference. A prior version of this proposal was vetoed by Gov. Hochul. The current version is still working its way through committee.
An October 2025 report by Reinvent Albany and Cornell’s State Policy Advocacy Clinic argues that some IDA-backed housing projects may be constitutionally vulnerable under Article VII, Section 8 of the New York Constitution, though that question is not settled law. Mount Vernon’s IDA portfolio, dominated by residential PILOTs, would be squarely in the path of any court that ever embraced that argument.
The Orange County Precedent: A State Monitor That Works
The most powerful argument for external oversight is not hypothetical. It already exists. And it’s working.
In 2024, Senator James Skoufis secured a state-appointed monitor for the Orange County IDA through the state budget process. The appointment followed a corruption scandal that resulted in criminal charges against IDA leadership. But the monitor’s role goes beyond cleaning up past misconduct. It establishes a model for ongoing, real-time oversight of an IDA by an independent professional accountable to the state, not to local politicians.
On March 25, 2024, Brian Sanvidge was appointed as the Orange County IDA’s independent monitor. Sanvidge is a certified inspector general and certified fraud examiner with over 30 years of experience. His appointment is for a three-year term. Critically, the monitor’s reasonable expenses are paid by the IDA itself, not by taxpayers.
The monitor’s powers are substantial and concrete. He attends all IDA meetings. He reviews all tax break packages before they are approved. He can veto incentive packages that do not meet standards. He requires policy changes. He is state-appointed, independent of local officials, and accountable beyond the reach of the local political ecosystem he is overseeing. This is not a figurehead role. It is real oversight with real enforcement power.
And Sanvidge has used that power. When the Orange County IDA attempted to fast-track a $607 million Amazon warehouse project, the monitor vetoed the incentive package. The reason? The IDA had not sufficiently considered the impact on taxpayers. The analysis was inadequate. The deal wasn’t ready. The monitor said no.
The IDA’s response to the monitor proved exactly why the monitor was needed. The IDA board spent $100,000 of IDA funds on lobbyists in an attempt to eliminate the monitor’s position. One hundred thousand dollars (money that should have gone to community benefit) spent trying to remove the one person providing genuine oversight. The effort failed. The monitor remains in place.
Mount Vernon’s IDA exhibits the same patterns that justified the Orange County monitor: concentrated power in a small board controlled by a single executive, minimal oversight, chronic noncompliance with state reporting requirements, and conflicts of interest at the highest levels. The case for a state-appointed monitor in Mount Vernon is not aspiration. It is obvious.
What Accountability Could Look Like in Mount Vernon
If state legislation passes and external oversight is established, what should accountability actually look like in Mount Vernon? Here are the concrete reforms that this city needs, each one tied to a specific failure this series has documented:
- Mandatory school district consent before any PILOT that abates school taxes. The school district lost $13.85 million in five years while holding only a non-voting seat on the board it had to sue to obtain. The elected school board must have a formal veto over deals that reduce its funding.
- Independent cost-benefit analyses conducted by genuinely independent third parties, not developer-driven reports designed to justify predetermined conclusions. The 2014 Comptroller audit found no cost-benefit analyses were being conducted at all. The analyses must be public, peer-reviewable, and completed before the IDA votes.
- Board expansion to at least 7 members with City Council confirmation and mandatory seats for labor and education representatives. Mount Vernon’s four-member board is the smallest of any comparable IDA in New York State, and every member serves at the mayor’s pleasure.
- The mayor must not serve as chair. The chair should be an independent member with no direct political relationship to the appointing authority. When the person who appoints the board also runs the meetings and presides over votes, independence is impossible.
- Fixed, staggered terms instead of appointments “at the pleasure of the mayor.” Board members should serve defined terms that overlap across administrations, ensuring continuity and insulating the board from political pressure.
- Enforceable clawback provisions when projects fail to meet job creation, investment, or community benefit targets. The Comptroller found 671 promised jobs that never materialized (a 45% failure rate) with zero consequences for the developers. If a developer promises 200 jobs and delivers 50, there must be financial consequences, not just a shrug.
- Caps on total PILOT exposure so the city does not give away its fiscal future one deal at a time. The aggregate cost of all active PILOTs should be tracked, published, and subject to limits.
- Real-time public posting of all PILOT agreements, compliance reports, payment records, and financial data. The IDA failed to submit state-mandated PARIS data for two consecutive years. Transparency cannot be optional. A searchable, sortable public dashboard that any resident can access is the minimum standard.
What You Can Do Right Now
Reform doesn’t happen by itself. It happens because people insist on it. Here’s how you can make a difference:
Show up. Attend IDA public hearings. Ask questions. Demand answers. When residents fill the room, boards behave differently.
Silence is consent. Your presence is not.
Support transparency efforts. The Mount Vernon Civic Integrity Project has been filing FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) requests, analyzing IDA data, and publishing findings. This work takes time, persistence, and resources. Support it.
Contact your state legislators. Tell them Mount Vernon’s IDA needs real accountability. Constituent pressure matters.
Demand a state-appointed monitor. The Orange County precedent proves it works. Tell your legislators that Mount Vernon needs the same thing. The IDA has had decades to reform itself. It hasn’t. External oversight is the only path forward.
Support the school board’s resolution. The school board took a principled stand. Back them up. Tell your school board members you support their position that no outside agency should give away school tax dollars without the board’s consent.
Share this series. Send it to your neighbors. Post it on social media. Discuss it at community meetings. The IDA’s power depends on obscurity. Transparency is its antidote. When people understand what is happening to their tax dollars and their schools, silence becomes untenable.
It’s Time for Accountability
What is happening in Mount Vernon is not a series of isolated bad deals. It is a system that shifts public costs onto residents and schoolchildren while insulating politically connected developers from risk. The agency was designed without adequate oversight, transparent reporting, or genuine accountability. And the people who benefit from that design have no incentive to change it.
This series is not about opposing housing. Mount Vernon needs housing. It is not about demonizing developers. Developers respond to incentives. It is about accountability, transparency, and mathematics.
It is time to end the silence. It is time for oversight. It is time for accountability. And it is time for Mount Vernon to demand what every community deserves: a government that works for its residents, not for politically connected campaign donors.
*Some numbers and data analysis are from mountvernoncitizen.org. Chris McDonough and mountvernoncitizen.org are not affiliated with the Civic Integrity Project.