BERNE — Berne appears to have canceled the town board meeting that had been tentatively scheduled for Oct. 30, meaning that, come November, the town will have gone three straight months without a proper board meeting. 

The board last technically met on Aug. 14, just after three of its five members had suddenly resigned, citing the “hostile work environment” under Supervisor Dennis Palow and concern about the town’s finances. 

Palow and Deputy Supervisor Thomas Doolin were unable to conduct any official business at that meeting, however, because there was no quorum. 

That means it was in July — a full season ago — that a substantial and productive town board last met. 

There has been virtually no word from either the remaining town officials or the governor’s office about the situation since the August “meeting,” save for a brief acknowledgement from the governor’s deputy press secretary to The Enterprise at the end of August that the governor’s office was “reviewing” the situation. 

The Enterprise has made numerous requests of the governor’s office for an update since that first response (which itself followed a number of inquiries), all of which have gone unanswered. A Freedom of Information Law request for documents that might shed some light on the situation was rejected, and a follow-up request is expected to be answered next month. 

Meanwhile, town residents as of Monday had not yet seen a copy of the town’s tentative 2025 budget, with Town Clerk Kristin de Oliveira alleging earlier this month that, even though the supervisor had filed the document with her office, she was unable to share it with The Enterprise.

The newspaper submitted a FOIL request and received a copy of the tentative budget on Oct. 29; it was posted to the town website around that time. 

According to state law, the deadline for the final version of the budget is Nov. 20, meaning the town board, if and when it’s back on its feet, will need to sprint to meet that deadline — a worrying prospect when the town’s finances have never been in worse shape. 

The Enterprise reported earlier this month that the town has — again — been underpaying its National Grid bills. This was less than a month after the paper published a report on the town’s bank statements, which revealed that the payroll account had been overdrawn on a number of occasions and that money was being frequently transferred among accounts without authorization. 

The New York State Comptroller’s Press Secretary Mark Johnson told The Enterprise last month that the town is not being audited, and would not comment on the transfers. 

The town’s fiscal stress score, as calculated by the Office of the State Comptroller, based on the financial data the town submits each year, has more than quadrupled since 2021 as the town has thrown itself into a deficit, opting to almost completely spend down its unassigned fund balance before it was forced to raise taxes by more than 700 percent for this year. 

The fiscal stress score for 2023, the latest year available, is 28.8, compared to 6.7 in 2021. 

At 45 points, governments are considered to be susceptible to fiscal stress; at 55, they’re in moderate stress; and at 65, they’re in significant stress. 

Contributing to Berne’s rising score are its operating deficits (10 points) and the “assigned and unassigned fund balance as a percentage of gross expenditures” (18.75 points).