To the Editor:

I read with interest an Enterprise article titled “Berne town board mismanaged finances, state comptroller says” [Sept. 20, 2021]. Comments attributed to Supervisor [Sean] Lyons are very misleading as is often the case:

“Lyons also said it’s ‘important to note that this audit period covers two board majorities.’”

It’s much more important to understand that Mr. Lyons was the chief financial officer and the town supervisor with complete control over the 2020 budget process. He and Mr. [Randy] Bashwinger illegally manipulated the process to impede our review and approval of the budget.

According to the town attorney and a budget consultant we hired, Bashwinger and Lyons failed to respect their statutory obligations. They very deliberately derailed our efforts to evaluate the proposed 2020 budget.

Mr. Bashwinger did not provide estimates by the deadline as required by law and Mr. Lyons failed to reschedule a meeting as requested by three board members. He did not respond to our requests and illegally let the clock run out on the deadline to approve the tentative budget. When the tentative budget is approved, it becomes the official “preliminary budget.”

Mr. Lyons illegally failed to reschedule the meeting as required by law, let the clock run out on his deadline that is mandated by law, made independent changes to the “tentative budget” without the required town board approval and then released his still flawed, unreviewed, tentative budget to the public, fraudulently presenting it as the approved “preliminary budget.”

Just before election, he misled voters by releasing the tentative budget that he had independently and fraudulently remuddled, touting a 9-percent reduction in taxes. I believe a review of the town records will show that there was no preliminary budget in the development of the 2020 budget and the final budget did not reduce taxes 9 percent.

This entire scenario is well documented, and I provided this documentation to both The Enterprise and the Office of the State Comptroller. I pointed out to the OSC that the board had approved a sweeping illegal motion to give Mr. Lyons authority to pay all town expenses without board audit.

One of the most important functions of the town board is the oversight of spending. How does the board control spending that has already taken place?

It is reported that Mr. Lyons implies that the town attorney reviewed and approved this ridiculous motion in 2019. Prove it, Mr. Lyons. That is something that would have been emailed for review by the board and the attorney in a town board that is not an absolute dysfunctional mess.

I was not provided anything for review prior to the 2020 organizational meeting that made sweeping changes and included a number of other illegal motions [“New Berne board makes sweeping changes,” The Altamont Enterprise, Jan. 1, 2020]. I had no opportunity to review, and I don’t think the attorney did either.

So my extensive reporting to the OSC pointed out and very well documented budget-process issues like failure to observe statutory obligations, deliberate obstruction of the mandated review process, misrepresentation of the budget for political purposes, an illegal motion to give the chief financial officer authority to pay all expenses without board knowledge or approval and an audio recording of Mr. [Dennis] Palow, in an open budget workshop, vowing that the new board majority would ignore the board-approved budget as of Jan. 1, 2020.

I in no way asked OSC to target any specific months and I have provided all my emails to the OSC to The Enterprise. In my opinion, comments attributed to Mr. Lyons in the article are simply nonsense as is often the case.

Then, to further explain my policy of abstaining from any affirmative votes related to spending, one needs to understand the issues with the 2021 budget.

In the development of the 2021 budget, on Sept. 30, 2020, the town’s chief financial officer, Supervisor Lyons, announced in a memo the tentative budget and the creation of a “Pandemic Encumbrance Reserve” that contained $133,000 as a funding source.

I noted at that time that the 2020 budget was simply a list of estimates balanced on anticipated revenue sources that were now magically a funding source. And how could we cite the same source in both the 2020 and 2021 budgets without town board action to encumber funds from specific accounts to create a new reserve?

Was this source in reserve accounts somewhere at that time? What would be left in those accounts? All these questions would have been public knowledge had the town legitimately created a reserve account as a source for the 2021 budget.

Unbelievably, in a subsequent meeting, these people are recorded (recording provided) claiming they never called this a reserve. I have documented that they not only called it a reserve in writing during the process, they cite this reserve as a source on the final budget.

Based on my conversations with folks with considerable town budget experience, employees of the Office of the State Comptroller, and a budget consultant, I was advised that no such reserve was recognized by the comptroller — there is no such thing. I was advised by multiple sources that all this illegal nonsense is confusing at best and confusion is an ideal opportunity for embezzlement.

Then yet another illegal motion was approved in 2021. This one gives Mr. Palow authority to pay all town expenses without board knowledge or approval to.  Mr. Palow’s spending-related information is totally illegitimate from my experience. I don’t believe anything he says.

As one example, he derailed a board-approved safety initiative to engage an independent consultant to evaluate town highway operations. We all know how that turned out.

His rationale for this motion was that the evaluation would cost “hundreds of thousands,” yet the request for proposals was never made public and no estimates were received. It was not true.

A month later, he claimed in that meeting that he never said that. The problem here is that I provided recordings of both statements to The Enterprise.

You simply cannot trust anything these guys say or document so I will abstain from any affirmative votes in spending matters.


Joel Willsey


Berne Town Board

Editor’s note: See related story.