(Steve Thurston, File photo, 2022)
Ron Kim, left, and Dillon Moran.
The dust-up between the Saratoga Springs Mayor and the Commissioner of Accounts continued at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting with the mayor calling for a “forensic investigation” into the way the commissioner moved money in his budget. The budget transfer from one line in the Accounts Department budget to many different lines in that department was approved at the council’s Sept. 6 meeting.
The budget line that money was moved from had been used to pay the Director of Risk and Safety in the Accounts Department. In August, that position was taken by the city council from Accounts and placed in the Mayor’s Office.
However the money that went with the position for payroll was not listed in the resolution to move the position. As well, Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran has refused three times to sign a budget transfer request that would move the payroll from his budget to the Mayor’s budget, Commissioner of Finance, Minita Sanghvi said.
Instead, Sanghvi said, Moran moved the money in a budget transfer on Sept. 6, from the payroll line to 16 other lines in the Accounts Department budget. It passed during the "budget transfers-payroll" item on the Commissioner of Finance agenda, Sept. 6.
The sparks flew when Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran brought forward a resolution to retain Cullen and Dykman LLP for a total of $29,999.
That law firm will help Moran look into the way in which the city moved the director of risk and safety, a move that Moran maintains was flawed and illegal under civil service regulations and home-rule law.
Moran has said that the city’s legal department had not followed the risk and safety matter closely enough.
“The capacity of our legal department is not what it was before taking office,” he told the council as a justification for bringing on another law firm at the Sept. 20 meeting. That was an oblique reference to Mayor Ron Kim’s decision in January. When Kim took office he decided not to appoint an Assistant City Attorney and to rely on City Attorney Tony Izzo and others retained in certain situations.
But when Moran attempted to assign money to retain the law firm, Finance Commissioner Sanghvi stopped him, and pointed out a resolution that she would bring forward later in the meeting.
She said she understood why Moran wanted to retain the lawyer for the Accounts Department and had no problem with that. However she had troubles with the procedure because Moran was retaining a law firm to look into the problems with the risk and safety move, but was using money that went to cover the pay of the Director of Risk and Safety.
Either the situation is concluded and the money is Moran's to move in the budget as needed, or the matter is still open and under discussion, and how to use the money for that budget line is still in play.
She said that Moran, “was trying to have his cake and eat it, too.”
Later in the meeting, Sanghvi brought forward a resolution to move the $50,937 back from the various accounts Moran had moved it into and place it in the single line that had been used to pay Marylin Rivers, the current director of risk and safety.
She also admitted that Lynn Bachner, the city’s budget director, should have flagged Moran’s budget transfer of Sept. 6 for others to look at more closely. According to Sanghvi, Bachner has admitted it was her oversight.
“I’m going to ask for a report on this,” the mayor said at one point, aiming his ire at Moran, not at the budget director. Moran pushed back and said commissioners moved money in their budgets all the time, even from payroll.
“Not like this,” the mayor said.
Moran retorted he used the “one mechanism” that everyone else uses when shifting funds.
Saghvi and Commissioner of Public Works Jason Golub said they supported the idea that Moran could hire an attorney.
“I’m not saying that Commissioner Moran did anything wrong,” Sanghvi said at one point when Golub pointed out that many people missed a chance to say something before that transfer was approved. Sanghvi said that they get many transfers this time of year, and it slipped between the cracks.
In the end, Moran agreed to withdraw the proposal to hire the law firm until next meeting. He would find the funds in a different budget line by then, he said. The city council passed the resolution moving the money back into the single line.
Moran believes he is well within his rights to hold on to the funds and redisperse them as needed.
“If you’re going to take an employee, you better have a plan to pay for them,” Moran told the mayor.
After the meeting, Sanghvi asked Moran if he planned to sign the budget transfer that would allow the $50,937 to move into the mayor’s budget.
He answered: “I’m not prepared to answer that now.”
Correction: We incorrectly stated that the budget transfer proposed by Dillon Moran was in the city's consent agenda. It was in the Commissioner of Finance agenda, an item listed "budget transfers-payroll." The story is now correct and we apologize for the error.