What it did not include was a single word about the financial emergency threatening to bankrupt this city within two years.

State of the City addresses are usually political theater. Nobody expects forensic accounting. But there is a difference between the normal polish of political performance and a speech that actively contradicts the documented reality residents live every day. Patterson-Howard’s address crossed that line.

Residents see cracked sidewalks, closed storefronts, and property tax bills that have risen over 40% in five years. They were told they were witnessing “transformation.” They were told the city is “not raising taxes to survive” but “generating revenue to thrive.” They were told the police department deserves applause. They were told the building department is now “modern” and “data-driven.”

None of that holds up. Let’s go through what the mayor said, and what she left out.

The Financial Emergency No One Mentioned

The single most important fact about Mount Vernon went completely unaddressed: the city is broke.

Comptroller Darren Morton has publicly warned that Mount Vernon could face insolvency within two years. At a recent Board of Estimates and Contracts meeting, he flagged that 2025 actuals were running $4 million short of projections. The city has no bond rating (withdrawn in January 2019 and never restored). It has no reserve funds. It has not completed an audit since 2020. It borrows through tax anticipation notes, essentially municipal payday loans, just to keep the lights on.

Three months before the State of the City, in December 2025, the NYS Comptroller issued a follow-up report revisiting 11 recommendations from a 2020 audit of the city’s financial reporting and oversight. The results: three implemented, four partially implemented, four not implemented. The findings read like a catalog of institutional failure.

The city still has no multiyear financial or capital plans. The Council President told auditors that without a credit rating, the city simply cannot do long-term planning. Budgets were adopted 13 to 85 days late over five years. Revenue was overestimated by $8.8 million in 2023 and $13.1 million in 2024. The overtime appropriation in 2024 was underestimated by $4.1 million, a 180% miss. The Comptroller’s own office has not filed Annual Financial Reports for 2021 through 2024; those filings are between 225 and 1,321 days late.

The mayor did not mention any of this.

Property taxes have risen 44% faster than inflation since 2001. The City Council has overridden the state tax cap in 11 of the last 15 years, adding a cumulative 34.73% above the allowable levy. The 2026 budget includes another 5.47% increase. Sales tax revenue has fallen 7% in two years while every neighboring city grew. The city is sitting on $60 million in unpaid property taxes it can’t or won’t collect.

We’ve documented this fiscal emergency in detail and presented it directly to state legislators. The NYS Comptroller has confirmed years of financial failures. The mayor’s response? “We’re not raising taxes to survive. We’re growing revenue to thrive.”

The state’s own auditors say the city can’t produce a reliable budget, can’t complete an audit, and can’t tell taxpayers whether the deficit is getting better or worse. That’s not thriving. That’s a city running on fumes and pretending the tank is full.

“Crime Is Down” — Until You Look at What Just Happened

The mayor celebrated 365 days without a gun-related homicide. She thanked the police department for its “dedication.”

Just days earlier, Mount Vernon Detective Kyren Braunskill, 34, had been arrested by the Suffolk County DA. He’d been promoted to detective on March 19. By March 26, he was in handcuffs, named in a 57-count indictment alleging he funneled guns to Long Island gang members tied to two murders, eight armed robberies, and five shootings. Braunskill had been on a state decertification list after being fired as a probationary corrections officer in 2020. The department hired him anyway. In September 2024, they named him Cop of the Month.

This isn’t an isolated incident. In October 2025, five officers were suspended after a prisoner smuggled a loaded revolver into a transport van and shot another detainee during transport. The gun should have been found during booking. The department’s own statement admitted the firearm “should have been detected during arrest or intake.”

In December 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice found a pattern of excessive force, unlawful arrests, and illegal strip and body cavity searches after a three-year investigation. Officers strip-searched nearly every person arrested until at least fall 2022. Two women, ages 65 and 75, arrested on fabricated drug charges, were strip-searched; an internal investigation found the officers had lied, and their punishment was losing a few vacation days. In one case, a resident was charged with selling drugs in Mount Vernon while he was actually in North Carolina, confirmed by Instagram posts, bus receipts, and browser history.

The mayor acknowledged the DOJ investigation in December. At the State of the City, she didn’t mention it.

And that “365 days without a gun-related homicide”? Lisa Grier, 33 was beaten to death with a hammer inside her East 4th Street apartment on March 21, days before the address. The mayor’s carefully worded metric (“gun related deaths”) allowed her to skip past the fact that a woman was murdered in her own home in Mount Vernon the same week.

The Building Department: “Modern and Data-Driven”?

The mayor described the building department as a transformed operation issuing permits in five to seven days. She introduced “Lucky,” an AI chatbot.

In April 2024, the New York State Department of State issued findings documenting systemic failures: backlogged permits, understaffing, city codes not updated in 30 years, and a failure to conduct required annual fire inspections of schools, houses of worship, and multi-family residences going back to 2009. Records were missing. Violations had no follow-up. The state threatened to hand code enforcement to Westchester County if improvements weren’t made by August.

That threat, not internal initiative, drove whatever changes followed. Residents have been documenting their struggles with this department for years. Calling it “modern” and “data-driven” isn’t transformation. It’s rebranding.

$44.4 Million in Tax Revenue, Gone

The mayor touted residential development. She mentioned MacQuesten Parkway and Vernon Commons. She talked about “diverse housing opportunities.”

What she didn’t say: the Mount Vernon Industrial Development Agency, the driver of housing development, has handed out $44.4 million in tax breaks over the past decade, collecting only $15.9 million in return. The school district lost $26.7 million. The city lost $13.3 million. And 67% of the IDA’s portfolio is low-income housing that generates zero sales tax and virtually no permanent jobs.

The flagship project at 115 South MacQuesten tells the story. The developer invests 6% of project costs, collects a fee worth 168% of that investment, and gets a 30-year tax abatement. The developer’s political operative was the mayor’s chief fundraiser. Campaign contributions from connected parties total $25,050. The abatement is worth $15.3 million. A 600-to-1 return. When a resident asked the mayor to recuse herself, her response was: “Sue me.”

Sales tax revenue, the clearest indicator of commercial health, has fallen 7% in two years. The gap with New Rochelle widened from $9.3 million in 2016 to $15.7 million in 2025. If IDA tax breaks were generating growth, that gap should be closing. It’s accelerating.

Five Years to Fix an Overpass

The mayor celebrated bridge reopenings. The Fulton Avenue and South Street MTA bridges, closed since 2022, have been rebuilt. Credit where it’s due; that was funded primarily through MTA and state partnerships.

But the Fulton Avenue overpass, the one that matters most for daily south side traffic, remains closed. It was shut down in January 2023. At the State of the City, the mayor said “yesterday we met with engineers to select a design” — convenient timing. Projected reopening: fall 2027. That’s nearly five years closed.

The Comprehensive Plan: Already in Court

The mayor touted the city’s first comprehensive plan in 55 years. She left out the part where residents immediately sued to void it. An Article 78 lawsuit filed by four residents, including a professional planner with 40 years of experience, alleges the City Council failed to provide meaningful public participation, withheld the full plan before hearings, and skipped required environmental review under SEQRA. We covered the underlying problems when the plan was released.

The Sewer “Success” Story

The mayor claimed sewer backups are down 95%. But she recently stated that only $25M of $150M of New York State sewer grants were spent so far. Did those $25M fix 95% of the problem?

Generally, any reduction is welcome. But the city still hasn’t openly addressed what happened in Hunts Woods, where residents fought for years to get the city to acknowledge a crisis the administration denied.

“Rewriting Narratives”

The mayor said Mount Vernon is “rewriting narratives.” She framed criticism as “misconceptions, myths, and sometimes outright disinformation.”

This is a pattern. When watchdog organizations publish documented, sourced criticism, the administration labels it misinformation. The mayor doesn’t engage with the data. She doesn’t contest the numbers. She reframes the act of criticism itself as the problem.

Residents don’t need better narratives. They need completed audits. A bond rating. A building department that doesn’t require state intervention. A police department that doesn’t hire from decertification lists. An IDA that doesn’t hand $44.4 million to developers while the school district, the most fiscally distressed in New York State, loses $26.7 million.

They got none of that on March 31. They got a prayer, a campaign video, and an hour of claims that collapse under the weight of public records.

Sidenote: The Production Itself

A small thing, but telling. The video of the State of the City address itself is a dumpster fire. The first 20 minutes of the broadcast are a static title card. The audio sometimes plays through one channel only. The mayor’s microphone cuts out repeatedly. Speakers are never identified. Sound clips and distorts. The video randomly jumps to title cards mid-sentence.

As of this writing, the video has been viewed about 500 times. Mount Vernon has a population the mayor claims is nearly 100,000.

The Reality Check

The mayor closed by telling Mount Vernon to “step into the future.” The future she didn’t mention is the one where the comptroller says the city could be bankrupt within two years.

Spin and flowery narratives don’t change that. Audits do. Oversight does. Accountability does.

None of those made it into the speech.

Watch the full 2026 State of the City address:
https://www.youtube.com/live/IJIp2aQQ7Wk

We were told the finances were dire. We were told restraint was necessary. We were told taxes had to go up because the City was broke and that an “austerity framework” would impose discipline on spending.

And then, almost immediately, the exceptions started.

So let’s call this what it is: the austerity budget was not austerity. It was branding.

A slogan. A talking point. A shield used to sell pain to taxpayers while preserving discretion for City Hall.

One recent email exchange with Comptroller Darren Morton — who, word on the street has it, thinks he’s going to be the next mayor — says the quiet part out loud.

In January, residents objected to discretionary travel being approved just weeks into the fiscal year. The argument was simple: if the City is truly in financial distress, travel should be limited to what is essential, mandatory, or contractually required. That is what residents were led to believe the framework meant. Morton responded at the time by assuring the public that the framework did not permit unrestricted or discretionary travel, and that formal protocols were being developed to ensure requests were evaluated under a heightened standard.

That sounded reassuring.

But by late March, when residents again challenged a travel request for Planning Commissioner James Rausse to attend a national conference in Detroit, the standard had changed. Or rather, the reality had become harder to hide.

Now the explanation was that online training is generally more cost-efficient, yes, but in-person training can sometimes offer additional value. Now the issue was no longer whether travel was essential or mandatory, but whether officials could describe it as useful. Now a “national conference” complete with networking and travel was being defended as a “consolidated training opportunity.”

That is not austerity.

That is a loophole wide enough to drive a city vehicle through.

The problem here is not just one $2,500 trip. It is the bait-and-switch.

Taxpayers were sold a story of discipline. They were told the City had entered a new era of hard choices. But when it came time to apply those hard choices to itself, City Hall reverted to the same old game: define the rule broadly, define the exception even more broadly, and then pretend the public is too unsophisticated to notice the difference.

Residents noticed.

They asked the obvious questions. What specific deficiency is this expense addressing? What measurable outcome justifies it? What exactly cannot be learned through lower-cost alternatives? What accountability follows after attendance? Will there be a report? A deliverable? A measurable benefit to taxpayers?

Those are not unreasonable questions. They are the bare minimum questions any serious austerity regime would ask before approving discretionary spending.

And yet even Morton, in his March 26 response, effectively conceded the point. He acknowledged that residents were right to demand a clearly defined purpose, identification of the specific need being addressed, measurable outcomes, and accountability following attendance. He admitted those were “reasonable expectations” and said he would discuss them as part of a “more structured and transparent review process.”

Think about that.

The Comptroller was defending a travel expense under an austerity framework while simultaneously admitting that the standards residents were demanding still needed to be discussed as part of some future process.

So what exactly was the framework?

Because if the rules were not clear enough to require a defined purpose, measurable outcomes, and post-attendance accountability before the expense was approved, then the so-called framework was never a framework at all. It was window dressing.

That is why this matters.

The issue is not merely whether one conference might have some professional value. Of course conferences can have value. The issue is whether City Hall should be indulging discretionary travel while telling residents to accept higher taxes, deteriorating services, and endless warnings about financial distress.

Mount Vernon residents are not stupid. They understand that every single questionable expense may be survivable on its own. That is how governments get away with waste. It is always “just” a few thousand here, “just” a conference there, “just” one more exception. But the cumulative message is unmistakable: austerity for taxpayers, flexibility for officials.

That is the breach of trust.

And it gets worse. Because once officials establish that a travel request need only be described in sufficiently vague language about training, value, networking, or city priorities, then the entire restraint narrative collapses. Every expense becomes defensible. Every trip can be reframed as worthwhile. Every exception becomes precedent.

Which means this will happen again.

Unencumbered.

Unless residents keep exposing it.

The City cannot have it both ways. It cannot declare financial emergency, raise taxes, invoke austerity, and then act as though ordinary standards of proof do not apply when officials want to spend public money on discretionary travel. If austerity means anything, it means saying no to things that may be useful but are not necessary. If every “beneficial” expense survives review, then austerity is a sham.

And that is exactly what taxpayers are looking at.

Not a serious system of fiscal discipline. Not a meaningful check on discretionary spending. Just another familiar Mount Vernon performance: stern language for the public, elastic standards for government, and an expectation that no one will connect the dots.

They did.

And they should keep doing it.

Because if this kind of fakery goes unchallenged, the “austerity budget” will become what so many City Hall promises become in Mount Vernon: a joke on taxpayers.

A proposal before the Mount Vernon Board of Estimate and Contract would authorize $85,546.99 in taxpayer funds, without public bidding, for traffic signalization improvements tied to the 42 West Broad Street development.

The work is being labeled an “emergency.”

It isn’t.

Two Statements — One Problem

In correspondence to City officials, Vincent J. Ferrandino, the City Council’s former review consultant for the project (and Mount Vernon resident), states that escrow funds exist for 42 West Broad intended to cover these improvements.

Separately, a previously reported $500,000 “42 Broad community benefit” appears to have been removed or reclassified in City financials, with similar funds now listed under “custodial accounts” — without any 42 Broad designation.

So:

• If funds were set aside, why are they no longer clearly accounted for?
• Why are they absent from the current proposal?
• If they exist, why are taxpayers being charged instead?
• If they don’t, where did they go?

Where’s the money?

The Resolution — and the Omission That Matters

The resolution referred from the City Council:

• Authorizes $85,546.99 in taxpayer funds
• Proceeds without competitive bidding
• Labels the work an “emergency”
• Makes no reference to escrow, community benefit, or project-specific funds

That omission is not technical — it is the issue.

Where’s the money?

The “Emergency” That Took a Decade

Traffic impacts from 42 West Broad were identified years ago during Planning Board approval. As standard, those impacts were to be addressed through developer-funded improvements, typically secured through escrow.

Now, nearly a decade later, the City calls it an “emergency.”

It wasn’t addressed in February.
It wasn’t addressed last year.
It wasn’t addressed at any point in the intervening decade.

This is not an emergency. It is delayed accountability.

And, as seen before — including the use of our ARPA funds to demolish the family home of now First Deputy Comptroller Condell Hamilton — the “emergency” label is again being used to bypass financial safeguards designed to protect taxpayer dollars.

Missing Accountability

The Building and Planning Departments — responsible for enforcing site plan conditions — are notably absent from this discussion.

Before any vote, the resolution must be amended to:

• Identify available escrow funds
• Require their use first
• Prevent shifting developer obligations onto taxpayers

Anything less is a failure of basic oversight.

The Real Question

This is not about one $85,546.99 expenditure.

It is about whether funds collected for a specific purpose are:

• Tracked
• Preserved
• Used as intended

Or quietly redirected while taxpayers are billed again. This is also something we’ve seen before. When money meant to pay our first responders was quietly moved into a contingency line and later used to fund 40-50% raises for elected and appointed officials.

Same people. Same pattern. Same questions.

Where’s our money?

The Bottom Line

Before any vote, the City must answer a simple question:

Where is the escrow money tied to 42 West Broad — and why isn’t it being used?

Until then, Mount Vernon residents are left asking what they’ve had to ask far too often:

Where did our money go?!

This is a story about what grows when accountability disappears.

There are two 501(c)(3) nonprofits operating out of Room 11 at Mount Vernon City Hall. They share the same address, overlapping officers, and a board composed almost entirely of city employees. One uses the Recreation Department’s phone number. The other has the city’s Commissioner of Recreation and Commissioner of Public Works written into its bylaws as permanent board members. And in 2024, the City of Mount Vernon issued one of them $60,000 in federal pandemic relief funds, with checks approved by the same man who runs both organizations.

The first is called Friends of Mount Vernon Arts, Recreation and Youth Programs Inc. (Friends of MVARYP, EIN 90-0910967). The second is the Mount Vernon Memorial Field Foundation, Inc. (MVMFF, EIN 47-1292288). Both have websites that show very little meaningful information.

What follows is what the public records show.

THE CONTEXT: A CITY THAT STOPPED REPORTING

In September 2020, State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli released an audit of Mount Vernon’s financial reporting and oversight. City officials had not established basic financial policies or procedures. The City Comptroller failed to file the required annual financial report for fiscal years 2016 through 2019. No audited financial statements had been issued since 2015. The city had lost its credit rating.

In January 2022, a second state audit found millions in expenses not timely paid, inappropriate actions by the former city comptroller, and poor disclosure that caused ongoing legal issues. The state made 29 recommendations. DiNapoli urged Mayor Patterson-Howard and the incoming City Comptroller, Darren Morton, to implement them immediately.

As of the state’s most recent follow-up, the City’s 2021 through 2024 audits remain outstanding. The general fund deficit, last measured at $28.9 million as of December 2020, has likely grown. The city still cannot tell its own residents what its finances look like.

This is the environment in which Friends of MVARYP received $60,000 in federal money, and in which two city-run nonprofits operate out of the same room in City Hall.

THE FIRST NONPROFIT: FRIENDS OF MVARYP

Friends of MVARYP was incorporated in 2012 and received 501(c)(3) status in 2014. It operates out of City Hall, uses the Recreation Department’s phone line, and reports revenue of $300,856 for fiscal year 2024. Based on its IRS Form 990-EZ filings (available on ProPublica) and city employment records, here is its board:

Eight of nine board members are current city employees or elected officials. This is not a community organization with some government ties. It is city government running a private fundraising vehicle, one that answers to no city council, no budget hearing, no public vote, and no FOIL request.

THE SECOND NONPROFIT: MOUNT VERNON MEMORIAL FIELD FOUNDATION

Friends of MVARYP is not the only nonprofit operating out of Room 11.

The Mount Vernon Memorial Field Foundation, Inc. (MVMFF) was incorporated on April 3, 2014, under Section 402 of the New York Not-for-Profit Corporation Law. Its Certificate of Incorporation was filed by Darren M. Morton. Its stated purpose: to provide financial and programmatic support for the preservation, renovation, and operation of Memorial Field.

On June 5, 2024, Morton signed the organization’s Registration Statement for Charitable Organizations (CHAR410) with the New York State Attorney General’s Charities Bureau, listing himself as President and primary contact. The registration was received July 16, 2024. The foundation is registered under NY State Reg. No. 50-30-94, with its principal address at 1 Roosevelt Square, Suite 11, the same room in City Hall where Friends of MVARYP operates.

The registration lists three officers:

Every officer of the Memorial Field Foundation also serves on the board of Friends of MVARYP. All three are city employees or elected officials.

The overlap does not end with shared personnel. The MVMFF bylaws structurally embed city government into the nonprofit’s leadership: Section 6.1 mandates that the board include “the City of Mt. Vernon Commissioner of Recreation and Commissioner of Department of Public Works.” Section 6.2 confirms these commissioners serve “by appointment to the respective City office,” not by election. This is not informal overlap. It is a permanent feature of the organization’s charter.

The foundation’s Certificate of Incorporation designates process service at One Roosevelt Square, Room 11, City Hall. Its contact email is Morton’s personal Gmail.

One additional detail: according to the CHAR410, MVMFF’s federal tax-exempt status was revoked on May 17, 2017. The registration was filed June 5, 2024, seven years after revocation. Whether this represents a re-application or a registration of an organization operating without tax-exempt status is not clear from the public record.

Two nonprofits. Same City Hall address. Same president. Same treasurer. Overlapping boards. City commissioners written into the bylaws.

No resident voted for this. No city council authorized it. No public hearing examined it.

THE FEDERAL MONEY

In May 2024, Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard signed a formal ARPA subrecipient contract awarding Friends of MVARYP $60,000 in federal pandemic relief funds. The nonprofit was represented at signing by Kathleen Walker-Pinckney, the city’s own Recreation Commissioner, acting as the nonprofit’s Vice-President. The city’s Department of Planning and Community Development administered the contract.

The city issued two checks from the Office of the Comptroller: $30,000 on July 15, 2024 (Check No. 160381), and $30,000 on October 8, 2024 (Check No. 161390). Both payable to Friends of MVARYP at 1 Roosevelt Square, Room 11, City Hall. Payment vouchers require Comptroller approval.

The Comptroller is Darren Morton. The President of Friends of MVARYP is Darren Morton. The President of the Memorial Field Foundation is also Darren Morton. His office approved disbursements to an organization he leads, while simultaneously leading a second nonprofit out of the same office.

The contract’s Section 16, Conflict of Interest, states:

“The Subrecipient warrants that no part of the total Contract Amount shall be paid, directly or indirectly to an employee or official of the City/County as wages, compensation or gifts.”

The nonprofit’s board is composed almost entirely of city employees and officials. The contract contains a clause it cannot truthfully sign, and the city signed it anyway.

THE FIRE RELIEF SOLICITATION

On November 24, 2025, a fire tore through a residential building at 30 Cottage Avenue in Mount Vernon. Mayor Patterson-Howard responded on her official city Facebook page, directing all monetary donations to Friends of MVARYP, with Zelle payments to Accounting@friendsofmountvernon.org. Gift cards were to be dropped at the Office of the Mayor.

Click here for full-size image

No independent charity. No escrow account. No public accounting. The mayor used the authority of her office to channel disaster relief donations into a nonprofit controlled by city hall employees. As of publication, no accounting of those funds has been made public.

THE CITY COUNCIL WAS ASKED TO BLESS IT

On the evening of March 9, 2026, the Mount Vernon City Council held a work session. Item 12 on the referral packet read:

“An Ordinance Authorizing Continued Co-Sponsorship between the Mount Vernon Recreation Department, Youth Bureau, and Friends of Mount Vernon Arts, Recreation & Youth Programs, Inc. for Community Programming and Special Events.”

The attached letter, submitted by Commissioner Walker-Pinckney and Executive Director Burrell-Butler, requests Council approval of a formal, ongoing agreement allowing the nonprofit to “accept monetary donations to continue funding special events hosted by the Recreation and Youth Bureau Departments.” The stated reason: “current budget constraints.”

That is a direct, written admission that Friends of MVARYP exists to move public-purpose money outside the budget process, bypassing city council appropriations, public hearings, and Freedom of Information Law.

The co-sponsorship request was submitted on Friends of MVARYP letterhead, but that letterhead lists the city’s own website (cmvny.com), the Recreation Department’s Facebook page, and the Recreation Department’s phone and fax numbers. The nonprofit has no independent institutional identity. The signatories used their government titles: Walker-Pinckney signed as “Commissioner,” Burrell-Butler as “Executive Director.” City officials using government authority to advocate for a contract between the city and a nonprofit they lead is a textbook Public Officers Law §74 conflict, documented, signed, and submitted to a legislative body.

Click here to see the full referral and letter.

And the word “continued” is telling. They are not asking to create this relationship. They are asking the Council to formalize one that has already been running without legislative authorization.

Approval does not shield anyone from legal exposure. But it creates institutional cover and makes future accountability harder.

THE INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE

Think about how many hands this agenda item passed through before it reached the public. Someone drafted the letter. Someone formatted it on nonprofit letterhead listing city phone numbers. Someone packaged it into the referral packet. Someone assigned it an item number. Someone distributed it to Council members. Someone posted the agenda.

At every step, a city employee had the opportunity to say: wait a minute. A nonprofit run entirely by city employees, operating out of City Hall, using city phone lines, chaired by the city’s own Comptroller, is asking the Council to authorize it to raise money for city programs outside the budget. The letter is signed by two department heads using their government titles. The word “continued” tells you this has been running without authorization.

Nobody stopped it. Nobody flagged it. Nobody said this needs legal review before it goes to a vote.

That silence is not a procedural lapse. It is an institutional failure. The systems meant to catch conflicts of interest, to ensure public money moves through public processes, to protect taxpayers from self-dealing, have either broken down or were never functioning.

The individual conflicts in this article are serious. But an entire administrative apparatus processing this referral without a single objection may be the most damning detail of all. It suggests the arrangement is not being hidden. It is simply normal. The people inside City Hall do not see the problem, because the problem is the culture they work in every day.

WHAT THIS MEANS

New York Public Officers Law §74 prohibits public employees from engaging in activities that create a substantial conflict with their official duties. Federal ARPA regulations under 2 CFR §200.318 require conflict of interest disclosures and prohibit officials from participating in grants in which they have a personal interest. The city administered $60,000 in federal money through an arrangement that violates the plain terms of both standards.

Mount Vernon spent years unable to account for public money. The state documented the failures. Officials promised reform. And while reform was being promised, while the audits remained unfinished and the credit rating stayed suspended, city officials were building a parallel financial structure: two nonprofits, same City Hall office, same leadership, funded first by private donations, then by federal ARPA funds, and potentially to be formally ratified by the City Council as standard operating procedure.

Mount Vernon residents deserve a government that spends public money in public. What is described here is the opposite of that.

The conversation was direct. Mount Vernon is not experiencing a one-year budget problem. The city has no bond rating, no completed audits since 2020, no reserve funds, and over $60 million in unpaid property taxes. Property taxes have risen more than 40% over the last five years while city services have declined. The City Comptroller has warned that insolvency is possible within two years.

This is not news to Albany. The New York State Comptroller’s office has audited Mount Vernon’s finances multiple times and found serious failures each time. A 2020 audit found that the city had not filed required annual financial reports for fiscal years 2016 through 2019, had produced no audited financial statements since 2015, and had lost its credit rating as a result. A follow-up audit released in January 2022 documented 29 separate recommendations to overhaul the city comptroller’s office, after finding unauthorized electronic disbursements totaling $16.4 million, millions in unpaid bills, and a near-total absence of financial controls. The state has flagged these problems. The city has not fixed them.

Assemblyman Pretlow indicated he is well aware of Mount Vernon’s financial condition. He expressed support for the concept of a state financial monitor and stated that if the Mount Vernon City Council passed a resolution requesting one, he would champion it at the state level.

That last part matters.

A state financial monitor cannot be imposed from Albany without local action first. Under New York’s home rule framework, the City Council must move first. A council resolution requesting state oversight would give the Assemblyman the political and procedural footing to act.

This is now a question for Mount Vernon’s elected council members.

MVCIP’s position is straightforward: the city’s fiscal problems are structural, not cyclical. They will not resolve themselves through another tax increase or another year of delayed audits. Meaningful oversight, with real authority and clear exit conditions, is what a responsible path forward looks like.

We will be bringing this message directly to city council members in the weeks ahead. We encourage residents to do the same.

Download our full report on the fiscal emergency in Mount Vernon here.

It is reflected in the 5.5% property tax increase, the consistent appearance of new fees, the current fees that multiply with every tax bill, and a municipal budget that shows a city spending roughly two dollars for every dollar it brings in. It is visible in aging infrastructure, flooding, deteriorating buildings, and departments that struggle to deliver basic services.

Against that backdrop, the City’s recent spending decisions deserve scrutiny.

$20,800 in Conference Travel

At the March 3 meeting of the Board of Estimate & Contract, the City approved five out-of-town conference trips totaling $13,800.

Those approvals follow another $7,000 in conference travel approved the previous month.

In two months, that is $20,800 in conference travel.

All approved unanimously. With virtually no discussion. Comptroller Darren Morton asked a few questions — but in the end, he did what he always does…

The “Free” Trip That Isn’t Free

One of the approved trips sends the Building Commissioner, Patrick Holder, to Las Vegas for four days to attend the Laserfiche Empower Conference at the Mandalay Bay Resort.

City officials noted that conference registration is covered by a third party. That does not make the trip free — far from it.

The City is still paying his salary, benefits, travel and lodging, and four days of lost work time.

The Building Department

The Las Vegas trip is particularly offensive given the condition of Mount Vernon’s Building Department, which residents and contractors regularly describe as a Kafkaesque nightmare.

• Permits routinely sit for months or years. I have personally been waiting an obscene amount of time to close a simple solar permit.
• Code enforcement is nearly nonexistent, and what enforcement does occur is wildly inconsistent.
• Buildings across Mount Vernon are literally falling apart. Just recently, a hole was discovered — by a resident — in the top deck of the Sidney Avenue parking garage, forcing part of the structure to close.
• And the Building Department itself — with its yellowed, crumbling, mold-infested walls — is a disgusting symbol of the City’s neglect. The condition of the office perfectly reflects the condition of the system it runs.

Under these circumstances, sending the department head — or any department employee — across the country to a resort conference in Las Vegas is not just inappropriate, it is outrageous. And it is one more slap in the face to the hardworking Mount Vernon taxpayers who are expected to foot the bill for a government that cannot even perform its most basic functions.

The Building Commissioner — especially this Building Commissioner — should be in the office fixing the department, not flying to Nevada for a four-day resort junket. The Building Department already has a Laserfiche contract. What it does not have is a functioning operation. And even if that conference offered something of genuine value, Laserfiche is records management software — not a tool the Building Commissioner should be running or overseeing in the first place. This is not a trip that required the commissioner. It was a trip the commissioner decided to take.

A Convenient Loophole

Another approved trip highlights a structural issue.

The Board of Water Supply received approval for a conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, on the ground that it operates outside the City’s austerity review protocols.

If austerity is real, however, it should apply everywhere our tax dollars are used, and the Board of Water Supply is most certainly wetting their beaks. In fact, Mount Vernon water bills just recently increased.

Austerity measures should apply not only to the Board of Water Supply, but also to the Mount Vernon Urban Renewal Agency and the Mount Vernon Industrial Development Agency.

At present, it does not. What sense does that make?

Meanwhile . . . a Portrait Ceremony

While approving travel under an austerity budget, the City is also planning a ceremony to unveil a portrait of former Comptroller Maureen Walker later this month.

That raises a simple question: Who is paying for the portrait?

If taxpayer funds are involved, residents deserve to know.

The ceremony also carries a certain irony.

Former Comptroller Deborah Reynolds has absorbed no shortage of blame over the past six years — from many of the very same officials now organizing this ceremony. But the problems did not start with Reynolds.

Maureen Walker served as Comptroller during former Mayor Ernie Davis’ tenure — a period marked by corruption and fiscal mismanagement that helped set the stage for the crisis Mount Vernon is living through today. The Comptroller’s job is to be a check on exactly that kind of behavior: to watch the books, flag the problems, and protect the public. Walker kept things looking orderly. What she did not do was sound the alarm. Whether she failed to see what was happening, or simply chose not to say anything, the result was the same.

So the ceremony carries a particular irony. The officials who spent years pointing fingers at Reynolds are now unveiling a portrait of the comptroller who came before her — the one who kept things looking fine while the foundation cracked.

So the real question is not simply whether Walker deserves a portrait. The real question is why Mount Vernon keeps honoring the very people who brought it to where it is right now.

This is performative nonsense. And it is exactly what we have come to expect from this administration.

Austerity Means Choices

Austerity is not a slogan. It is a set of priorities.

Mount Vernon residents are paying higher taxes, higher fees, and watching basic services continue to deteriorate.

City Hall is paying for unnecessary conferences, travel, and ceremonies.

If that’s what austerity looks like, it’s no wonder the City’s finances never improve.

This is not about politics, personalities, or one anomalous budget year.

Mount Vernon is in a structural fiscal emergency, and pretending otherwise is no longer just dishonest – it’s dangerous.

For more than a decade, the City has stumbled from crisis to crisis, relying on tax hikes, expensive short-term borrowing, and accounting improvisation to paper over deeper failures. The result is a government that costs more every year, delivers less, and has lost the basic ability to manage its own finances.

At this point, the question is no longer whether Mount Vernon has a problem.

The question is: Why the State is still allowing it to continue?

Financial Distress – In Real Life, In Real Time

Let’s start with the basics.

Large budget-to-actual variances are a classic warning sign of weak financial controls. When projections routinely miss reality by millions of dollars, budgeting stops being planning and becomes theater.

Mount Vernon’s 2024 Budget vs. Actuals reveal that revenues and expenses missed their targets across multiple major categories — not at the margins, but at levels significant enough to reshape the City’s fiscal picture.

The Collapse of the Fund Balance

Mount Vernon’s fund balance — the municipal equivalent of a rainy-day savings account — fell from a healthy surplus in the early 2010s to a deeply negative position by 2019–2020.

A negative fund balance means the City spent money it did not have — not as the product of a single bad year, a recession, or the pandemic — but as the predictable result of years of unrealistic budgets and weak controls in which the budgeting process ceased to function as a real planning tool.

Long-Term Liabilities vs. Net Position

As cash reserves disappeared, long-term obligations moved in the opposite direction.

Mount Vernon’s bonded debt, accrued benefits, and other long-term liabilities rose sharply over the same period that its net position flipped from positive to deeply negative — a clear signal of structural insolvency, not a temporary cash crunch.

In plain terms: Mount Vernon owes far more than it owns, with no credible plan to close the gap.

Taxes Keep Rising, the System Keeps Failing, and the Numbers Don’t Add Up

Years of outsized property tax increases have not stabilized Mount Vernon’s finances. They have concealed deeper failures while shifting more of the burden onto residents.

Since 2012, the City has routinely overridden the state tax cap, exceeding it by a cumulative 34.73%.

Over just the last five years, residents have absorbed more than 40% in cumulative tax increases, including add-on sewer and garbage fees.

Since 2001, Mount Vernon property taxes have risen 44% faster than inflation.

That is not a revenue problem. It is a governance problem.

Missing Bond Rating, Missing Discipline

Despite ever-higher taxes:

• Mount Vernon still has no bond rating
• It holds no meaningful reserves
• Audits after 2020 remain incomplete
• The City continues to rely on tax anticipation notes — essentially high-interest payday loans — just to operate

Higher taxes are not stabilizing the system. They are feeding a cycle of dysfunction.

The Economy Is Sending a Warning

The most overlooked red flag—and one of the clearest—is sales tax.

Over two years, Mount Vernon’s sales tax collections fell by 7%, even as neighboring cities continued to grow. That is not normal volatility — it signals economic stress and declining commercial activity.

This makes Mount Vernon an outlier – and not in a good way.

Sales tax declines mean fewer transactions, fewer customers, and fewer businesses succeeding locally. It’s what happens when a city is unpredictable, poorly managed, and hostile to investment.

You cannot tax your way out of that.

Unpaid Taxes and Selective Enforcement Are Breaking The System

While residents are asked to pay more, the City is sitting on over $60 million in unpaid property taxes.

Repeated tax amnesties have failed. Standard enforcement tools — including foreclosure — have been applied inconsistently or avoided altogether.

The predictable result is a system in which compliant taxpayers subsidize chronic nonpayment, while leadership sidesteps politically difficult decisions.

The administration wants you to cloak its poor choices in the language of compassion; in truth, those decisions amount to fiscal malpractice.

A Missed ARPA Opportunity

The American Rescue Plan Act delivered $41 million to Mount Vernon — a once-in-a-generation chance to stabilize finances and rebuild trust after COVID.

Instead, Mount Vernon’s ARPA spending revealed the same patterns:

• • Weak documentation
  • Emergency-style decision making
  • Minimal transparency
  • Little connection between spending and measurable outcomes

Taken together, these patterns show a system that does not function the way a responsible government should.

That is why the debate cannot be limited to whether particular purchases were technically “allowed.” The real problem is that the City still lacked basic institutional financial controls when they were needed most.

MVCIP’s ARPA series explores how Mount Vernon squandered this opportunity.

Why a State Financial Monitor Is Necessary

Local self-correction is no longer credible.

A state financial monitor is not punishment — it is damage control.

Effective oversight would:

• Enforce timely audits and reporting
• Require a realistic multi-year financial plan
• Review risky borrowing and major contracts
• Mandate a serious tax enforcement strategy
• Restore credibility with residents, vendors, and markets

Oversight should be temporary, enforceable, and benchmark-driven — with clear exit conditions once the City proves it can govern responsibly.

The Time for “Wait and See” Is Over

Mount Vernon’s current trajectory is unsustainable — last-minute budgets, blown tax caps, and manufactured emergencies are not “governance.”

The State must act now: impose oversight, restore basic controls, and protect residents before a preventable crisis becomes irreversible.

*Figures shown are publicly available at mountvernoncitizen.org. Chris McDonough and mountvernoncitizen.org are not affiliated with the Civic Integrity Project.

That is how long it took the Mount Vernon City Council to pass a 5.47% property tax increase for 2026, override New York State’s 2% tax cap by supermajority vote, and approve a so-called “declaration of necessity” by the Mayor – a maneuver that was presented as somehow making this entire exercise legal.

The vote took place in a hastily scheduled “Special Meeting” on a Tuesday afternoon at 4:30 p.m., a time when it would be difficult for most working residents to attend. The date was December 18, less than one week before Christmas.

This is not where the process started.

In the weeks leading up to the vote, residents were told the increase would be 5.47%, then 6.09%, then closer to 8%, and only days before the final vote were told it would be again – 5.47%. By the time the gavel came down, the process had become a blur of shifting figures, rushed meetings, and improvised explanations – all culminating in a decision that permanently raises taxes for thousands of Mount Vernon households.

The Mayor held the public hearing on the tax cap override law at 9.45am on December 30 – twelve days after the City Council had passed it.

One Day’s Notice for a Permanent Tax Increase

On December 17, 2025, residents learned – via a City Facebook post — that the City Council would hold a special meeting the very next day, December 18 at 4:30 p.m., to vote on a tax cap override and the FY 2026 budget.

One day’s notice.

Overriding the state tax cap is not routine. Under New York law, it is an extraordinary act meant to be used sparingly and only with heightened public notice, deliberation, and transparency.

In Mount Vernon, according to analysis by the blog Mount Vernon Citizen, exceeding the New York State property tax cap has become the norm, not the exception.

Here is the rub: overriding the tax cap requires the City Council to pass a law, not just a simple ordinance – with significantly more stringent notice and public hearing requirements. The Mayor circumvented that process through a same-day “declaration of necessity,” effectively declaring an emergency despite the absence of any actual emergency or sudden fiscal shock.

There was no natural disaster. No unexpected revenue collapse. No new information that had not already been known for months – or years.

The only urgency was getting the vote done before the cash-strapped City ran out of money due to an absence of sound financial planning. By late 2025, the City had already taken out a $6.5 million Tax Anticipation Note – the equivalent of a high-interest payday loan – after running out of cash before the end of the fiscal year. Before the year was over, on December 31, the City Comptroller announced publicly that 2026 tax bills had already been mailed and were available online, encouraging residents to pay promptly.

Mount Vernon is an outlier as far as constantly overriding the New York State tax cap is concerned. Our surrounding communities usually stay below it – and did so this year:

Westchester Comparison: Mount Vernon as an Outlier

Paying More, While Existing Taxes Go Uncollected

This vote did not happen in isolation.

Over the past five years, Mount Vernon residents have absorbed nearly 40% in cumulative tax increases and add-on fees, while living with:

• • Perpetually poor service quality
  • Visible deterioration across major corridors
  • Departments failing basic performance standards
  • Chronic delays in required audits

At the same time, the City carries approximately $52 million in unpaid property taxes. Roughly 1,200 of the City’s 12,000 properties were recently eligible for foreclosure. The City has not foreclosed on a single property in more than a decade. Instead of collecting what is owed, City Hall repeatedly returns to the same solution: raise taxes on the residents, who already pay.

A Budget Without Reform Is Just a Bill

The 2026 budget contains no credible structural reform plan. There is no multiyear financial strategy. No explanation for why revenue projections should suddenly be trusted. No plan to revive commercial corridors. No roadmap connecting higher taxes to improved outcomes.

The New York State Comptroller has documented these failures for years: unrealistic budgeting, incomplete audits, underbudgeted expenses, overestimated revenues, and an inability to plan beyond the next fiscal year. Raising taxes without fixing the system that mismanages them is not governance – it is governmental malpractice.

The Charter Was Ignored – Again

Mount Vernon’s City Charter exists to prevent exactly this kind of rushed, opaque decision-making. In a December 2025 follow-up letter, the New York State Comptroller explicitly warned that Mount Vernon continued to disregard Charter-mandated budget procedures – deficiencies that remained only partially corrected. Despite that warning, the City once again compressed the process, introduced key legislation at the last minute, and pushed through a tax cap override under conditions that undermined transparency and meaningful public participation.

This is no longer ignorance. It is willful repetition of an unlawful practice.

The Outcome Was Decided Before the Public Spoke

Residents showed up. They demonstrated with signs in front of City Hall. The chambers were full. Speakers raised detailed objections: about legality, process, numbers, and trust. None of it mattered. The votes were locked in. Two Council members phoned it in  remotely via Zoom. Public participation was permitted – but functionally meaningless.  This is not how democratic decision-making is supposed to work.

Predictable. Preventable. Repeated.

City officials say they had no choice. That is not true.

This outcome was the foreseeable result of years of poor decision making: treating tax cap overrides as routine, delaying audits, ignoring Charter deadlines, failing to collect existing revenue, and papering over structural problems with short-term fixes.

Unless Mount Vernon stops governing by crisis and starts governing by rules, residents will be back here next year – having the same fight, with a bigger bill.

Rather than closing out a deliberate and transparent recovery effort, the City’s final ARPA expenditures reinforce a pattern evident since 2021—fragmented decision-making, weak internal controls, and little evidence that spending was aligned with direct, accountable community outcomes. Compounding the problem, the City never developed a coherent recovery plan. As the December 31, 2024, obligation deadline approached, 2024 devolved into a rushed effort to obligate funds and execute contracts. Predictably, haste produced errors.

Several 2025 expenditures appear not to have been timely, legally, obligated at all. That, however, did not stop the City from cutting checks.

For example:

• On February 25, 2025, the City issued a check for $75,885 to Don Brown Bus Sales, Inc., but there is no indication in the file showing that this money was obligated prior to December 31, 2024.
• On February 25, 2025, the City issued a check for $112.,943.36 to MES Service Company LLC to purchase equipment for the fire department. However, while the legislation authorizing the purchase occurred in 2024, the City did not obligate itself to make the purchase until 2025.

The year also saw nearly $1 million spent on building repairs for facilities that remain leaky and dilapidated; additional vehicle purchases; more software—some involving recurring costs the City neither planned for nor can afford; and yet another gift card program. A snapshot of the City’s 2025 ARPA spending appears below.

I. The City’s Own Blueprint—and Its Failure to Follow It

In 2024, the City unveiled the “Mount Vernon First: Small Business Grant” program as its flagship ARPA-based recovery initiative. On paper, it was robust:

• Clear eligibility criteria
• Defined geographic focus (Downtown Business District)
• A competitive application window
• A 120-point scoring rubric and individual evaluator scorecards
• Interviews and rankings
• Restricted uses of funds
• Monitoring, site visits, and documentation requirements

The City represented to the public—and to the federal government—that ARPA funds would be deployed through a structured, merit-based, documented process designed to spur recovery and revitalization.

The records tell a different story.

II. What the Files Actually Contain—and What They Do Not

Across the ARPA grants disbursed in late 2024 and throughout 2025, the City’s files fairly consistently include executed contracts, claim vouchers, and issued checks. But they just as consistently do not include:

• Proof that funded projects occurred
• Receipts or invoices tied to eligible uses
• Photographs of completed work, site visit reports, or completion certifications
• Monitoring or compliance memoranda
• Outcome or impact summaries

In short, the files show authorization and payment, but not performance or results.

That is not a clerical oversight. Under ARPA, the obligation to ensure compliance does not end when a check is cut. It begins there.

III. The Small Business Grants: Recovery in Name Only

ARPA’s small business grants were typically capped at $25,000 and often paid in two installments—sometimes months after the contract period had ended. While the City justified these grants as relief for “negative economic impacts of COVID-19,” the underlying uses frequently included: rent arrears, utilities, payroll, marketing, inventory, equipment, vehicle purchases, and general operating expenses.

Many of these uses stretch, if not exceed, the program’s own stated purposes, which emphasized façade improvements, build-outs, exterior work, and code compliance tied to downtown revitalization. More importantly, the files do not demonstrate that the funded activities actually occurred, let alone that they addressed pandemic-related harm.

IV. What If You Knew: A Case Study in Process Breakdown

One grant illustrates the systemic failures especially clearly.

The business What If You Knew received a $25,000 ARPA small business grant, justified as pandemic recovery assistance. The contract—executed only by the recipient—contained a clearly computer-generated signature, without an accompanying audit trail or signature certificate. While electronic signatures are legally permissible, the absence of authentication metadata in a federally funded contract weakens the integrity of the record.

More troubling is what is missing:

• No lease documentation
• No renovation or build-out receipts
• No permits
• No proof of expansion
• No expenditure report—despite the contract explicitly requiring one
• No monitoring or follow-up

The proposed use of funds—marketing, staffing, and contingency planning—also diverged from the core design of the Mount Vernon First program, which prioritized physical improvements and downtown storefront activation. In any event, there is no trace of a business operating under the name What If You Knew in downtown Mount Vernon. While the New York State Department of State lists the entity as “active,” its address remains the single-family home listed in the contract.

Whether this grant was well-intentioned is beside the point. The City cannot demonstrate that it complied with its own rules or with ARPA’s accountability requirements.

V. The Illusion of Oversight

The City produced scorecards, rubrics, FAQs, and selection packets that suggest rigor and discipline. But these materials largely exist in isolation, detached from the grant files themselves.

For many recipients:

• Scorecards are missing
• Rankings are undocumented
• Interview notes are absent
• Final selection rationales are unclear

Compounding these deficiencies, the review team consisted of the Mayor’s Deputy Chief of Staff and the Comptroller’s Assistant Comptroller—the same Assistant Comptroller whose father benefitted from ARPA funds when the City spent $72,000 to demolish his long-neglected property.

Once again, the City appeared unconcerned with substantive review or even the appearance of impropriety. What resulted was the appearance of oversight, not its substance.

VI. The Gift Cards That Couldn’t Be Used

The lack of follow-through and verification in Mount Vernon’s ARPA spending is not limited to small business grants. It also appears in resident-facing public safety initiatives, including programs involving cash-equivalent gift cards—one of the highest-risk forms of public expenditure.

In late 2024, the City used $61,835 in ARPA funds to purchase 400 prepaid Visa gift cards, each valued at $150, plus associated fees, for a program labeled the “Neighborhood Camera Program.” The purchase was processed through Commerce Bank and paid directly by the City. The authorizing ordinance describes a structured program: residents would receive gift cards to purchase security cameras, eligibility would be based on neighborhood need and crime data, and participants would agree to provide camera footage to the Mount Vernon Police Department if requested.

However, as with other ARPA programs, what the City’s files do not contain is equally important. There is no documentation showing:

• how recipients were selected,
• who received the cards,
• when or how the cards were activated,
• whether the cards were successfully redeemed, or
• whether cameras were ever purchased or installed.

Nor do the files include serial-number logs, distribution acknowledgements, redemption confirmations, or post-program reports—controls that are standard when public funds are converted into gift cards.

This absence of documentation is especially troubling in light of community reports that residents who attempted to redeem gift cards from a separate, earlier City-run gun buyback program found that the cards had no funds available when presented for use. According to residents, the cards were distributed, but the money “never went on the cards.”

Each gift card program involved different vendors, amounts, and inventories. What remained constant was City coordination—and a near-total failure of internal controls. Time and again, ARPA funds were used to purchase gift cards with no records demonstrating activation, distribution, or successful use.

Gift cards are not inherently improper. But they are inherently high-risk, precisely because once funds leave the City in that form, they are difficult to trace without strict controls. The City’s ARPA files show the money being spent—but not the programs being executed.

VII. The Final Accounting: Less Than Recovery, More Than Risk

By the end of 2025, Mount Vernon had expended or obligated virtually all of its $41,108,657 ARPA allocation. And yet:

• Less than 5% went to direct assistance for residents
• Community-facing programs lack proof of delivery
• Small business grants lack proof of performance
• The City absorbed long-term costs it cannot sustain
• The public was left without a transparent accounting

ARPA was meant to stabilize households, strengthen systems, and reduce future fiscal stress. In Mount Vernon, it did none of those things. Instead, it enriched City Hall.

VIII. Conclusion: Haphazard Spending Is Not Recovery

The ARPA era in Mount Vernon ends not with recovery, but with a reckoning.

The federal government entrusted Mount Vernon with more than $41 million in emergency relief—one-time funding meant to stabilize finances, protect residents, and prevent exactly the kind of fiscal collapse the City now faces. What residents received instead was a 5.47% property-tax increase, nearly non-existent services, unchecked crime, rampant homelessness, filthy streets, and so many fires that one resident publicly asked, “Is Mount Vernon Hell?”

Residents were never meaningfully prioritized. Developers dominated decision-making. And the City’s finances are weaker than before the money arrived.

This outcome was not inevitable. It was chosen.

City leadership failed to produce a comprehensive recovery strategy. They failed to adopt a disciplined plan to stabilize City finances or reduce long-term risk. They failed to create any framework that prioritized residents over vendors, insiders, or politically favored projects. They failed to impose guardrails to prevent one-time federal dollars from being used to create recurring costs the City could not sustain. Oversight was treated as optional. Documentation was treated as an inconvenience. Proof of results was treated as unnecessary.

And when the money ran out, the bill was handed to taxpayers.

Mount Vernon’s ARPA story is one of failed oversight at every level—local, state, and federal. It is a story of greed, corruption, and incompetence, of extraordinary public resources poured into a system that lacked the discipline, transparency, and integrity required to manage them. It is a story of misaligned incentives, where insiders benefited while residents paid more for less. It is the story of what happens when “free” money is given to people who think it is okay to give themselves 40% raises with back pay, buried in a contingency line and justified under an obscure provision of state law the public was never informed about. It is a story about the abject failure of the checks and balances on which our system of government relies.

In the end, a struggling city received a once-in-a-lifetime infusion of cash—roughly a quarter of its annual budget—and the people in charge still managed to drive it into bankruptcy. That is not bad luck. It is not misfortune. It is what happens when those entrusted with public money choose themselves over the people they were supposed to serve.

* * * *

This concludes The Sunday Series: ARPA in Mount Vernon.

Our next series, PILOTs, Politics, and the Public Cost, will examine the Mount Vernon Industrial Development Agency (IDA) and the unchecked expansion of developer-driven low-income housing, focusing on how these deals are structured, who benefits, and what they cost the public. That series, along with prior installments of ARPA in Mount Vernon, and other City-related material, is available at The Integrity Project’s website: https://mvcip.org/.

The letter, signed by Deputy Comptroller Robin L. Lois, summarizes more than four years of findings by the Division of Local Government and School Accountability, including repeated breakdowns in oversight, missing financial records, unreliable budgets, and weak internal controls.

Three Major State Audits, Dozens of Warnings

According to the Comptroller’s office, three major reports issued between 2020 and 2022 identified a total of 54 recommendations aimed at improving Mount Vernon’s financial management and operations.

2020 Financial Reporting and Oversight Audit

The September 2020 audit found that City officials lacked the basic financial information needed to manage operations effectively. Among the most serious findings:

• The City Comptroller failed to file required annual financial reports for fiscal years 2016–2019.
• No audited financial statements had been issued since 2015.
• The City Council did not take sufficient action to obtain accurate financial information.
• Officials lacked the data needed to develop multiyear or capital plans.
• There were no policies ensuring routine access to budget-to-actual or cash-flow reports.

In short, basic financial visibility — a prerequisite for responsible governance — was missing.

2021 Budget Review: Unrealistic Assumptions and Risky Projections

A follow-up budget review issued in April 2021 found that Mount Vernon’s adopted budget relied on revenue and expenditure assumptions that were not reasonable or supportable.

The Comptroller’s office warned that:

• The City relied on uncertain or one-time revenue sources.
• Revenues were overestimated.
• Appropriations were underbudgeted.
• The adopted budget created a risk of worsening fiscal instability and cash-flow shortages.

That review included 14 recommendations aimed at stabilizing budgeting practices and preventing further financial deterioration.

2022 Audit: Breakdown in Disbursement Oversight

A January 2022 audit focused on non-payroll disbursements revealed further governance failures.

According to the Comptroller’s office, the City Council and former Comptroller failed to properly oversee spending and did not ensure that basic financial controls were in place.

• Non-payroll disbursements were not properly or transparently accounted for.
• Payments were delayed, contributing to litigation.
• The City incurred additional, potentially unnecessary legal costs.
• Policies and procedures governing disbursements were either missing or inadequate.
• Staff lacked clear guidance on how payments were supposed to be processed.

That audit alone included 29 recommendations aimed at restoring basic fiscal controls.

Ongoing Monitoring — and Continuing Noncompliance

The Comptroller’s letter confirms that the State is still monitoring Mount Vernon and is currently conducting a follow-up review to assess whether the City has implemented the recommendations from the 2020 audit.

Notably, the letter states that Mount Vernon remains delinquent in filing its Annual Financial Reports (AFRs) for 2021 through 2024.

While the Comptroller’s office provides training, technical assistance, and reminders, it acknowledges that it cannot compel local officials to file required reports or adopt corrective measures.

Limits of State Authority

The letter also addresses calls for a state-appointed fiscal monitor for the City of Mount Vernon.

According to the Comptroller’s office, such a monitor cannot be appointed unilaterally. Doing so would require specific legislative authorization, similar to the provision included in the 2024–25 State Budget that allowed a monitor to be appointed for the Mount Vernon City School District.

What This Means for Residents

Taken together, the Comptroller’s response confirms what years of audits have already documented: long-standing weaknesses in financial oversight, reporting, and accountability — combined with limited enforcement tools when local officials fail to act.

The letter underscores a core tension in New York’s system of local government oversight: the State can identify problems, issue warnings, and recommend reforms, but compliance ultimately depends on local leadership unless the Legislature intervenes.

Why This Matters

Reliable financial reporting is not a technical detail. It is the foundation for budgeting, service delivery, taxpayer trust, and lawful governance.

Without accurate records, timely audits, and enforceable oversight, residents are left in the dark — and the risks of mismanagement, waste, and instability grow.

The Comptroller’s December 19 letter provides a rare, consolidated acknowledgment from the State itself of the depth and persistence of Mount Vernon’s fiscal governance failures — and the structural limits on the State’s ability to step in without legislative action.

Read the full Letter from the Office of the New York State Comptroller, December 19, 2025.