North Greenbush Financial Crisis
- jsabo8
- Nov 2, 2025
- 4 min read
Content of this blog post derived from this Times Union article on Nov 2nd 2025:
NORTH GREENBUSH — Town Comptroller Michael Chaires Sr. insists that North Greenbush has stemmed expenditures since a recently surfaced audit report warned of the government becoming “insolvent” if heavy fund balance spending continues.
The Cusack & Company report, addressed to “the Supervisor and Members of the Town Board” in late May, was shared by Democratic Councilwoman Mary Frances Sabo with the Times Union on Monday after she obtained a copy on Oct. 6. It was not distributed to her when it was released, due to what Chaires described as an error.
The four-page document details perceived fiscal weaknesses, including losses in the town fund balance, which dropped from $11.3 million to $3.2 million between the end of 2022 and 2024.
Chaires, in an interview, didn’t provide specific fund balance projections for 2025, as he believes it is more appropriate to tabulate them at year’s end. But officials in the Republican administration have maintained that high-dollar fund balance spending has subsided and sales tax will ultimately bolster the line.
“Some of the things we inherited and changed when they recommended a change and things like that, so it’s a work in progress,” Chaires said regarding the auditing firm’s report. “But as far as that one word ‘insolvent,’ it kind of taints the way you look at everything else.”
Read the letter from the auditors here:
Chaires, a former employee in the state Comptroller’s Office, has worked with the town since May of 2022. His boss is four-year Town Supervisor Joe Bott.
The Republican politician has focused on avoiding debt, which has involved tapping some fund balance dollars for trucks, town hall upgrades, the nearly complete $3.6 million Snyder’s Lake beach improvement project and the U.S. Route 4 corridor project — which was last expected to cost $9.8 million, but Chaires is uncertain of the total.
Officials are hopeful that $1.48 million in state reimbursement funds will eventually be funneled into the fund balance for the U.S. Route 4 project. The town received a letter from the state Department of Transportation on Oct. 21 stating that the money could be in within eight weeks.
In light of previous delays to get state payments, Cusack & Company’s 2024 report recommended that a “revised approach for collection of this receivable be considered.” But Chaires said he believes the town has taken sufficient steps to address the issue.
With the Snyder’s Lake project, Cusack & Company could not find Town Board authorizations for expenditures; auditors recommended that officials “develop and implement procedures” to show that every project is approved with a breakdown of funding sources included.
Chaires explained that the project, partially funded by a $230,000 Greenspace grant, didn’t have a formal spending plan. It was built up to include additional drainage infrastructure, a pavilion and a retaining wall over time, according to town officials. It’s 95% complete at this point.
“It started off to just remove the (bathroom and concession stand) building, and then like Joe (Bott) said, we started to look towards the future,” Chaires said.
Bott acknowledges that some of the expenses, such as replacing multiple highway trucks, have impacted the fund balance in the past and should such spending continue, the town would risk insolvency. But in his view, making investments with money available in-house was still a more cost-effective approach in the long run.
“Rather than go out to referendum and incur all the extra interest costs of bonding and different things like that, we had the money, so we spent it,” Bott said. “And we discussed (that) the money coming in would be more than enough to cover our future expenses.”
That approach has been questioned by Sabo, the town’s lone minority member, who previously expressed concerns over spending and fiscal oversight. She believes the 2024 Cusack & Company report backs her up.
“There’s nothing you’re going to be able to do because everything that’s going out and being paid is already accounted for,” she told the Times Union. “Something has to happen in order for them to build up a fund balance. It’s going to take years. It took years to get there.”
The letter also lists what the auditors described as a dozen “deficiencies in internal control” — eight categorized as “material weaknesses” and four less severe issues termed “significant deficiencies.” It uses the adjective “improper” for the town’s efforts to adjust overexpended accounts out of usual budgetary practice.
Some recommendations had been mentioned by auditors at least two years in a row.
Town officials blamed the highlighted deficiencies on changes in accounting software and practices from previous administrations, while saying that some measures have improved, such as maintaining a consistent inventory of fuel, salt and sand. Chaires also maintained that some recommendations were unnecessary, like having a monthly reconciliation prepared for developer escrows and state and federal government funds.
Sabo has taken heavy criticism for her remarks when the town’s $14.2 million budget was tentatively adopted during an Oct. 1 meeting. Republican majority members have accused her of misrepresenting town finances by periodically using low fund balance numbers and stirring panic in an effort to score political points for Democratic hopefuls running in this year’s election, including herself.
She stands by her concerns.
“I hope that my old car keeps running, but there’s a possibility that it might not and I might have to have it repaired,” she said in an analogy to fund balance spending. “Hoping that you don’t have to go into the fund balance is not a municipal strategy, especially for a town.”
Bott, who has criticized her for sharing what he described as a confidential document, doesn’t expect any major fund balance spending for capital projects ahead. He hopes that the town will bond $4.3 million for a capital project with the North Greenbush Ambulance Association.
After the Times Union informed Bott on Friday morning that it was going to publish the letter in the web version of this article, he called the paper’s editor in chief and threatened to sue Sabo. Asked if it was his belief that the town would be required to produce the letter in response to a state Freedom of Information Law request, Bott said he was waiting for the town attorney’s analysis on that question.
Asked why he thought the people of North Greenbush shouldn’t be able to read what he described as “a housekeeping letter,” he said, “I don’t care if they read it.”
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