Shelby supervisor glosses over problems with town’s financial records

Editor:

I will do my best to provide a clear response to the Shelby Town Supervisor’s letter date February 21, 2025. However, his letter is very confused and difficult to follow.

To begin with he takes credit for a reduction in the tax rate. That reduction had nothing to do with his reducing the budget, but the result of a town-wide reassessment that substantially increased the area’s tax base. Because of this reassessment many residents saw their taxes increase even though the tax rate was adjusted downward.

The 2024 NYS Comptroller’s letter is indeed a follow-up to the 2021 audit. The failures pointed out in this letter, which you need to read, were the result of extensive interviews with Supervisor Scott Wengewicz and Bookkeeper Miranda Bennett. The comptroller’s office found that of the 7 recommendations made in the 2021 audit, only one had been partially accomplished.

The quotation I cited was not from me but from the Comptroller’s 2024 letter.  Here is the complete quotation:

“Although the bookkeeper was present during our last audit and was aware of the discrepancies in accounting records, she did not correct or resolve the discrepancies. In addition, neither the former Supervisor nor the current Supervisor resolved the discrepancies in the Town’s accounting records and could not provide a reasonable explanation for not correcting the discrepancies in the Town’s accounting records”

This is after Supervisor Wengewicz had been office over a year and a half.

The list of the supervisor’s and bookkeeper’s failures go on. I invite you to read the 5-page letter from Deputy Comptroller Robin L. Lois posted on the Town of Shelby’s website titled, “Review Follow up NYS Comptroller Sept., 2024”.

The common phrase from the Supervisor has been “no corruption and no money missing.”  No one has ever suggested this; however, the facts point to the Supervisor making bad decisions regarding taxpayers’ money, including creating budgets without the slightest idea of the true finances of the Town. In my many years in business, dealing with large budgets, you cannot control expenses if you do not have good accounting information and he obviously did not.

He likes to take credit for work currently being performed by two outside accounting firms.  To date they have completed 2023 and are working on 2024 so we will have a clearer picture when they are done. The presence of these firms was the result of pressure applied by two very determined board member’s, Councilwoman Linda Limina and Councilman Ed Zelazny and repeated pressure by certain members of the taxpaying public.

Such as:

• April 11, 2023 Former councilman John Pratt recommends hiring an outside accounting firm.
• June 13, 2023 Councilman Zelazny notes discrepancies in the finances and pushes to hire an outside accounting firm. Supervisor Wengewicz refuses and states that there is no money missing.
• Councilwoman Limina, who has a 4-year accounting degree, offered on numerous occasions to help the bookkeeper and talk with the software company. All attempts to do so were met by refusals from the Supervisor.

I have compiled a list Shelby Town Board meeting minutes and YouTube recordings which show the Supervisors consistent refusal to seek outside help. Email me at heminway2025@gmail.com for that list.

In terms of the windmills and STAMP projects. As recently as March 2024, Borrego asked the board for a zoning variation that would define a Wind Overlay district. There is currently a moratorium on any wind project until the Town Board gets this Wind Overlay recommendation from the Shelby Planning Board. The STAMP issue is not finished and is still being litigated. Both these projects are like vampires – they are not dead.

He takes credit for using the ARPA money. This was one-time COVID-era Federal/State money that went to everyone. He did nothing to get it and we will never see this type of financial assistance again.

Claims to be in negotiations with the Village of Medina over the rates that Medina charges Shelby for water. He had two meetings with Medina on January 4 and February 8, 2024.  The third meeting scheduled for later in February was cancelled by Shelby and there had not been another until 4 members of the Village board attended the latest Shelby board meeting and in public forced a future meeting date.  I would not call these on-going negotiations.

Claims credit for putting the Town’s money in the NY Class investment fund. This was first suggested by Councilman Pratt in January 2023 and again in December 2023. He finally proceeded in mid-2024.

These are not just “Heminway says” but rather real facts.

If elected, I promise the taxpayers of Shelby that I will apply the lessons I learned as a Chief Operating Officer to the role of Shelby Town Supervisor and never allow the type of poor fiscal oversight and lack of transparency we have experienced over the last two years.

Regards,

Jim Heminway

Medina