The city of Saratoga Springs has been in negotiations with the New York State Attorney General’s Office (OAG) for eighteen months over an agreement called an Assurance of Discontinuance or an AOD.
The AOD’s purpose was to address how the city should deal with the criticisms of how the police handled BLM demonstrations in 2021. The OAG’s report on the handing of these demonstrations, “A Report on the Saratoga Springs Police Department Response to Protests in 2021”, included extreme and sometimes false allegations based on several instances of intemperate remarks by two city officials that were exploited to describe Saratoga Springs as a city so marked by racism and violence that it sounded like Selma, Alabama, in 1965. The many problems with this report were explored in a previous post in February 26, 2024
Both the city and the OAG were trying to reach an agreement on which actions the city would be required to take to to avoid litigation.
The original draft of an AOD agreement to address the report’s allegations contained a litany of reforms that sparked considerable disagreement between the city and the OAG. The problems with the original draft were explored in detail in a previous post from June 26, 2024.
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll, his deputy Dan Charleson, Police Chief Tyler MacIntosh, Assistant Chief Frederick Warfield, and James Potter of Hinman Straub (hired as counsel by the city) all worked with the OAG staff in the negotiations. Over time, the two groups established trust in each other, and both worked hard to craft a revised document that would yield policies that would enhance both the department and the community in maintaining the city’s law enforcement capabilities while protecting the constitutional rights of all.
The final agreement, which the City Council approved unanimously at its January 6, 2026, meeting, is radically different from the original OAG proposals.
Highlights Of The Revised Agreement
The original AOD stated that police on bikes could not be used for crowd control. That language was later removed.
The original draft specified that the throwing of water bottles did not justify an arrest. That provision was removed.
The Original draft prevented the SSPD from charging demonstrators with low-level offenses after the conclusion of the demonstration. The final agreement now allows the SSPD to bring low-level charges after a demonstration has been concluded. An Independent Oversight Official approved by the OAG will review these charges should they occur.
The original draft contained overly broad language that would have precluded the Public Safety Commissioner from influencing the department’s actions. The language was tweaked to say that the Public Safety Commissioner would not “improperly” influence the department.
The original draft banned the use of mounted police. In the final version, horse-mounted police are permitted at First Amendment assemblies only in positions at the back ranks of the police presence and shall not be used for crowd control, except in an emergency when necessary to ensure the safety of police officers and demonstrators.
The original language precluded any surveillance of protesters. Paragraph 57 now states that the city is prohibited from conducting surveillance based solely on engagement in First Amendment activity. This is consistent with federal Attorney General Guidelines.
The draft required that public comment shall be moved to the end of City Council meetings. When it was pointed out that the public would be frustrated by not being allowed to comment on resolutions prior to their adoption at Council meetings, it was agreed that the language would be changed from “shall” to “may.”
The AOD affirms that the City may enforce the demonstration declaration and has agreed to remove any potential jail sentence. As such, enforcement will be based on fines. Spontaneous demonstrations are permitted and have been upheld in federal cases. The AOD clearly defines a spontaneous demonstration as one that occurs in response to news or events that come into public knowledge less than 48 hours prior to the demonstration.
SSPD should advance to Tier 4 (arrest) only when demonstrators have refused to comply with dispersal orders issued at Tier 3. Dispersal orders must be read three times, with five-minute intervals, between each warning. If an emergency exists, SSPD may instruct demonstrators to disperse immediately.
The new language requires the city to establish a senior officer to be responsible for internal affairs. They would be trained to effectively monitor and manage disciplinary actions against officers charged with violations. Paragraph 73 indicates that we need a Captain or higher designated as an Internal Affairs Officer, which will require a new hire for the SSPD.
A Win For All
Given the highly charged nature of the issues, it is a testament to both the city and the OAG that patience and commitments to both the Constitution and the need for effective law enforcement led to an agreement that benefits the city and all its residents.
[Lew Benton (the picture is not of Lew) has done a tremendous service to our community in analyzing Saratoga Springs Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi’s budgets during her tenure in office. Lew documents how Sanghvi’s arbitrary numbers have “baked in” deficits into the city’s finances and have left the city in a deep financial hole for others to try to dig out of. His assessment? She has routinely violated her fiduciary obligations.]
From Lew Benton
The “Participatory Budgeting” process was ill-conceived from the start, but in the final analysis, its impact on the city’s fiscal health was insignificant when compared to the structural deficits built into the spending plans of the last few years.
With the advent of the Sanghvi administration four years ago, the city began preparing and adopting operating budgets with baked-in deficits. This was not unique, but each successive budgeting cycle since 2023 has consistently and increasingly underestimated expenditures and overestimated revenues.
The 2023 and 2024 budgets even included a non-existent $250,000 cannabis tax revenue. But finance’s biggest budgeting sin has been underestimating major operating costs. Initially, in the preparation of the 2023 budget, a council majority made up of new members, including the budget officer, could be given some empathy. But in preparing the 2024 budget, the finance commissioner failed to reverse course.
No doubt, the lack of institutional knowledge and limited understanding of how this government functions among a council composed of first-term members could temper the inadequacies in the 2023 budget. But failure to recognize and correct them going forward was unacceptable and violatedher fiduciary responsibility.
And that failure was aggravated by her inexplicable decision to present the then-proposed 2024 budget in a form wholly inconsistent with the requirements of the City Charter.
Rather than, as outlined in the Charter, follow a standardized budget format that employs “ … the most feasible combination of expenditure classifications by funds, organization unit, program, purpose, or activity and object,” all proposed expenditure lines were lumped together, not disaggregated by function.
Attempting to understand and compare the commissioner’s proposed amended 2024 budget with previous spending plans was as perplexing as Alan Turing’s early efforts to crack the Enigma Code.
The Charter requires a budget presentation that is transparent, relatively simple, and allows and encourages understanding. The commissioner’s amended budget format was opaque.
For example, several “department” expenditure lines under the auspices of the mayor were simply thrown together, co-mingled. The reviewer was left to divine which line items are part of which of the mayor’s several department budgets: i.e., City Attorney, Planning, Building, Human Resources, etc.
The same was true for Finance, Accounts, Public Safety, and Public Works. In the latter two, Public Safety and Public Works, the task of meaningful, comprehensive review of the budgets of discrete functions: i.e., fire services, policing, EMS, etc., required substantial investment in time and enough working knowledge to assign each line item to its respective agency.
In the mayor’s proposed budget, there were at least seven expenditure lines labeled “Professional Services,” but the only way to determine which department each line applied to required a time-consuming, tedious matching of account numbers.
Why finance elected to abandon a budget format that had always been relatively easy to read and understand, in favor of one significantly more difficult to puzzle out, is itself a conundrum.
The 2024 City Comprehensive Budget would eventually require significant amendments to avoid operating deficits, at the expense of the City’s fund balance.
First and foremost, it included unfavorable budget variances in both major revenue and expenditure accounts.
That all came on the heels of a 2023 budget that preordained the 2024 proposal’s many overstated anticipated revenues and, in some cases, grossly underfunded expenditure lines.
Attempting to transfer blame to those who had no hand in the adoption of the 2023 budget or the preparation of the 2024 plan, citing recent high inflation and the dearth of new revenue streams for the city’s fiscal difficulties, rang hollow.
All local governments are faced with the same headwinds. It might be more honest to acknowledge that hiring additional non-essential employees was not prudent, that budgeting non-existent revenues and deliberately low-balling major expenditures invites deficit spending.
The following are examples of the unfavorable variances in the 2024 operating budget.
Revenues
In Finance, $850,000 in Hotel Occupancy Tax revenue was proposed for 2024. This is over $100,000 more than was actually realized in FY 2022 and over $600,000 more than has been received to date in 2023.
The 2023 budget included a non-existent ‘Cannabis Tax’ revenue of $250,000. The proposed 2024 budget carries that same amount forward. Potential first-time revenues, such as this one, do not usually meet expectations. And prematurely including the revenue in the 2023 budget only added to a negative revenue variance
The proposed Mortgage Tax revenue for 2024 was $1.5 million compared to the $933,400 collected to date in 2023. The $933,400 was far below the $2.05 million budgeted.
The mayor’s budget was ripe with unfavorable 2024 revenue variances. The Building Permit account carried a proposed $700,000 revenue even in the face of a major decline in permit revenues in 2023.
Likewise, Planning Board fees were unrealistically overstated. Actual 2022 Planning Board revenue was $122,820. Still, this revenue line was increased to $200,000 in the adopted 2023 budget, but Finance projected it would fall $35,000 short.
The Public Safety revenue budget included a $300,000 increase in Ambulance Transportation charges over the $2 million projected to be realized by the end of FY-23, and is over $500,000 more than actually collected in 2022.
Parking Enforcement revenue was anticipated to be $462,0000 this in 2023, down almost $80,000 from the $540,000 budgeted and $38,000 less than the $500,000 in the 2024 proposal.
Operating Expenditures
The operating budget also includes many likely unfavorable variances. Just as overestimating revenues in the actual 2023 and 2024 budgets contributed to the city’s present fiscal dilemma, so have what appear to be unfavorable variances in the operating budgets.
In the 2023 Public Safety operating budget, the City Council included $190,000 for Fire Fighter Overtime, but finance projected that by the end of the fiscal year, $533,500 would be spent, which was an astronomical increase of $343,500 over the amount budgeted.
Similarly, the Firefighter Compensation Time budget was anticipated to be overspent. Only $190,000 was earmarked for this line in the 2023 budget but $563,000 was anticipated to be spent by year’s end, a $373.000 overage.
So too is the proposed 2024 Police Overtime and Compensation Time lines grossly underfunded. Finance proposed to appropriate the rather odd amount of $263,637 for Compensation Time vis-à-vis the $483,570 spent in 2022 and the projected $450,000 in 2023. The 2024 OT line is set at $325,000, compared with the $507,505 expended in 2022 and the then-estimated $450,000 in 2024.
In the aggregate, Finance is proposing 2024 Police and Fire Fighter OT and Comp Time expenditures totaling $1,338,637, although corresponding 2022 costs were $1,498,271, and projected 2023 expenditures were $1,981,000.
This pattern has only continued in the course of preparing and adopting the 2025 and now the 2026 budgets. I do not envy the challenges faced by the 2026 council.
I have catalogued Saratoga Springs Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi’s record of arrogance, mismanagement, and recklessness extensively during her four years in office. Yet even I was not prepared for her performance at the December 29, 2025, special end-of-year City Council meeting, her last.
Interestingly, according to the evaluations by her Skidmore students included in the second part of this post, her behavior in the classroom is no better.
Blogger’s Bizarre Exchange With Sanghvi
I attended the December 29, 2025, City Council meeting and spoke during the public comment period. My remarks were in response to comments Commissioner Sanghvi had made to the press regarding her colleagues, Mayor John Safford and Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll.
Just as a reminder, here is what Sanghvi said to the Daily Gazette about Mayor Safford in the December 17 edition:
“It was a transparent process. [Safford] voted for it,” Sanghvi said. “And I don’t know what to think about, except that, you know, I have sympathies for cognitive declines with age.”
As for Coll, she told Wendy Liberatore at the Times Union that his department had excessive overtime expenses, which he needs to get under control, but that “he doesn’t seem to care.” Sanghvi fails to identify which overtime costs she considers excessive and unwarranted.
Here are my remarks and her response.
Sanghvi’s bizarre response.
How can her performance be explained?
One possibility is that her mind automatically shifts into denial when confronted by unflattering revelations. Readers may recall that she recently denied having told Commissioner Coll that “absolutely” the 2026 budget would not include her participatory budgeting program, even though her comment, recorded on video, promised it would be removed.
The other, and more likely, explanation is that she was unwilling to apologize for her indefensible attack on Mayor Safford, so she pretended she had not followed the blogger’s three-minute remarks.
To fully appreciate her behavior at the December 29 meeting, these close-up clips are more revealing.
Overwhelmingly Devastating Evaluations of Minita Sanghvi As Skidmore Professor
I have screenshot the beginning of the evaluations and am including a smattering of other comments from her evaluations.
These are more from the site.
Lacks basic human decency (or empathy for others)
She’s extremely mean and offers zero support.
Extremely pretentious + rude.
It’s very odd to me that she’s still employed. Her utter disregard for the boundaries and feelings of others is truly appalling.
Take this class and you’ll be met with belittling comments, resistance, unnecessary stress, and a negative demeanor that isn’t conducive to learning.
She has a God complex and truly thinks she is better than everyone else. Very strange.
Possibly the most disliked professor at Skidmore and for good reason. She has zero intention of helping others & certainly does not want to see them go onto to be more successful than she is
From the way she treated me, you’d think she was being forced to teach the course for free.
She was extremely rude to our class,
A narcissist who seems to think that only herself (and the people she likes or agrees with) deserve to thrive or even exist in this world.
She really does not like people and shouldn’t be working with them.
She truly takes joy in putting other people down.
She wants more opportunities to put people beneath her so she can feel superior.
There are several attendance policy posts which is funny because she has horrible attendance
Her obsession with attendance and not being even a minute late is odd and speak to her controlling personality.
These are only back to March 2025. I skipped some negative ones
She holds very clear hostility towards women who don’t agree with her viewpoints
Her unkind demeanor and lack of basic social skills was off-putting
She isn’t very kind
Minita Sanghvi acted extremely smug throughout the entire course
So terrible it’s almost funny. It’s abundantly obvious at this point that Skidmore keeps her around for reasons other than teaching abilities or people skills.
I haven’t met even one person who felt comfortable around her.
Minita is an unethical personal all-around.
she struck me as quite the terrible human being
Has an inflated sense of ego
she’s blatantly rude
basic interactions with this teacher will quickly reveal her inflated sense of self-importance
Minita is horrible. She is super liberal and tries to make people fail
Given the abundance of these very telling reviews for Prof. Sanghvi, it is clear that staff disciplinary action should have been taken against her within Skidmore long ago
Incredibly insensitive, controlling, and judgmental.
Professor Sanghvi was overtly condescending and dismissive
When 18-year old students are acting with more compassion and maturity than the professor, you know there’s a problem.
Poor communicator and very intense which can make a lot of people feel uncomfortable. She’s narcissistic with a God Complex.
The New York Coalition for Open Government, a highly respected not-for-profit group that advocates for better transparency in government, has issued awards at its annual meeting. In the case of Saratoga Springs, we received two awards. Both were well deserved.
These awards would, under normal circumstances, be an enormous embarrassment to the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee, which has uncritically promoted Moran and has been disturbingly silent about the events that prompted the awards. It is yet another confirmation of how oblivious the Committee is to the profound importance of the New York State Open Meetings Law and the best traditions of democracy.
Press Release
Mike Brandi Honored on New York Coalition for Open Government’s Annual “Nice List” for Leadership in Government Transparency
Saratoga Springs, NY — Mike Brandi has been honored with inclusion on the New York Coalition for Open Government’s annual “Nice List,” recognizing individuals and organizations who have demonstrated a strong commitment to transparency and open government across New York State.
The New York Coalition for Open Government is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting open, honest, and accountable government at all levels throughout New York State. At a press conference held today, the Coalition announced its annual “Naughty and Nice List,” which highlights individuals who have either advanced—or undermined—the principles of open government over the past year.
Brandi was recognized for his role in exposing and pursuing unlawful conduct that obstructed public access to government records. His actions were central to bringing to light the conduct of outgoing Saratoga Springs Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran, who issued multiple false certifications in an effort to conceal public records maintained on his personal email account and social media.
In a landmark case, the Saratoga Springs City Court found Moran guilty after trial on three counts of unlawful obstruction of public access to records. As a result of that conduct, Moran was one of ten individuals statewide named to the New York Coalition for Open Government’s “Naughty List” for acting against the public’s right to know and unlawfully obstructing transparency.
“Open government laws only matter if they are enforced,” Brandi said. “This recognition underscores the importance of holding public officials accountable when they attempt to hide public records or evade transparency requirements.”
Saratoga Springs is finally coming to the end of the ordeal of having to listen to disinformation from Finance Commissioner Minita Sanghvi and Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran. Still, even for them, the chaos and dishonesty they have engaged in discussing the mess Sanghvi created with the 2026 budget takes a lot of nerve.
In the November 20, 2025, edition of the Saratogian, its readers were subjected to the magical thinking of Sanghvi and Moran, in which events are twisted beyond recognition.
Sanghvi’s Twisted Self-Congratulations
According to the city’s charter, the Finance Commissioner is supposed to spend months working with each department’s executive staff to craft the next year’s budget. The budget is supposed to reflect the Commissioner’s best thinking on balancing the city’s resources with its anticipated income.
In October, with less than two months until the budget’s required adoption date, Sanghvi suddenly announced that the city was in a deep financial hole. Her response was classic partisan abuse. To close this hole, Sanghvi’s (a Democrat) proposed budget eliminated funding for the Mayor’s (a Republican running for office) department for non-profits, most of which were devoted to homelessness, as well as other key services like school crossing guards.
This is what Sanghvi told the Saratogian on October 9, 2025,
“I could not take money from our police or public works department and then give that money to nonprofits. This is not an easy decision. This is not something we did lightly, but we had no other way of doing this.”
In this same article, she dismissed the idea of raising the property tax rate to address the shortfall:
Another option Sanghvi pointed out, though she added that she did not (sic) believe “city residents should not be facing the burden of rising property taxes every year” and that “2% is more than enough.”(Emphasis added)
Saratogian Newspaper
Sanghvi doesn’t explain where the money will come from to put the $900,000.00 back in the budget. Magic!
According to the November 25, 2025 Times Union, Sanghvi transferred $1,810,000.00 from the city’s fund balance (reserves) and $500,000.00 from the city’s retirement reserve. So we will run a deficit of at least $2,310,000.00 next year. I have no idea whether it is prudent to take $500,000.00 away from the city’s retirement reserve. It is troubling that Sanghvi supposedly overestimated by $500,000.00 what would be needed next year to meet our obligation regarding the retirement system.
Sanghvi’s Magical Thinking
As it turned out, the final budget was very different from her original proposal. In addition to raiding the city’s reserves and its retirement funding, Sanghvi reversed her position on raising taxes. Her new budget will now benefit by raising taxes by 4.53%. This, of course, comes after the election, during which she was campaigning for a Count Supervisor position.
It is important to note that based on Sanghvi’s budget, the city ran a deficit of $3,500,000.00 during the current (2025) year. It is rather stunning that Sanghvi only revealed this fiscal hole after her successful campaign for County Supervisor.
I’m sorry that, for many, the Saratogian articles are behind a paywall, as it is impossible to summarize the rambling, contradictory remarks Sanghvi made to the Saratogian in defense of what she did. Sanghvi effusively congratulated herself and her work with the community for reinstating her own cuts.
Take this statement from Sanghvi:
They [JK: The community?] said very clearly that they wanted to fund the RISE shelter, the homeless, Franklin Community Center and all these other organizations, which are doing incredible work in our community and that they were fine with the 4.5% tax increase. I think it was important for the public to come to that conclusion themselves and say, ‘yes, we want this tax increase to pay for this. And I think that’s sort of the goal that we achieved here.”
This may be the way Sanghvi wants this debacle remembered, but it is not what actually happened.
In fact, Sanghvi faced significant pushback from Mayor Safford, Public Works Commissioner Chuck Marshall, and Commissioner Coll on her budget from the start.
This is Coll’s recollection:
As soon as I saw the Comprehensive Budget unilaterally presented by Commissioner Sanghvi, I knew we were in trouble. The proposal included no funding for school crossing guards, contractual obligations, or our vital nonprofits such as the homeless shelter and the Senior Center. I strongly advocated for a tax increase to our legal limit (4.5%) and for using fund balance to support our nonprofits. Fortunately, Mayor Safford, Commissioner Marshall, and I reached a consensus to address the needs of our most vulnerable residents, as Commissioner Moran was absent from this particular budget workshop. The video of this meeting, dated 11/14/2025, will corroborate and set forth the truth of this matter, including that Commissioner Sanghvi’s budget did not provide funding for these nonprofits from the outset.
Commissioner Tim Coll
Dillon Moran’s Memory Hole
Moran was the sole vote against adopting the budget. He attributed his vote to the budget’s failure to include funds to address the city’s alleged water issues, issues he claimed he raised when he ran for DPW Commissioner seven years ago.
According to the Saratogian article, Moran said:
“The budget does nothing to put forward money to invest in the most important thing we provide to our citizens, which is clean, potable, consistent drinking water. I, in good conscience, cannot vote for that budget. The biggest issue facing this community. Period.”
Moran to the Saratogian
So if Moran was alarmed about the lack of money in the budget regarding water, why didn’t he offer an amendment to address his allegation?
Instead, he offered the following shrill warning to the Saratogian:
“The budget does not include money to address the issues in any sort of meaningful way. We are facing a $40 million investment that I called for seven years ago, when it was $24 million and it’s $40 now. If we don’t do something about it today, it’s going to be 50 (million), and then 60 (million), and then we’re going to have a major failure and then big sections of our community could be without drinking water.
“And if they’re without drinking water for a certain period of time, and those pipes sit dry, that’s it.”
Dillon Moran
Apparently, Moran does not remember that his campaign for Commissioner of Public Works at the time was deep-sixed when it was revealed that a campaign mailer he had sent included a forged letter purportedly from the New York State Department of Health supporting his wildly false accusations about the state of the city’s water supply.
This is the mailer containing the forged letter from the New York State Department of Health that Moran sent out in his attack on the late Public Works Commissioner Skip Scirocco.
This blog has documented the numerous missteps in handling the city’s finances by Minita Sanghvi since she became the Saratoga Springs Commissioner of Finance.
Under the city charter, Sanghvi is responsible for preparing the city’s budget each year, which must be adopted by November 30. As this deadline approaches, Sanghvi’s years of mismanaging the city’s finances have finally brought the city to the verge of a financial crisis. How severe a crisis it is, even now, is hard to determine, though, as the financial indicators Sanghvi should be providing are missing.
One of the key documents that should have been an important tool for the Commissioner to use in understanding the city’s financial condition and planning for the 2026 budget was due September 30. As of the time of this blog’s posting, the audit has finally been placed on the agenda for the November 18, 2025, meeting; however, the link to the actual audit included in the agenda does not work.
The tardiness of this audit is not new for Sanghvi. The 2023 audit also missed the September 30, 2024, deadline and was not submitted until November 7. This was coincidentally only days after the November 2024 election in which Sanghvi was running for the State Senate. As the audit included damaging items regarding her handling of the city’s finances, it is no small wonder that she delayed releasing it beyond the required date and after the election.
In addition to tardiness, Sanghvi is criticized in the audit for failing to follow “accounting practices generally accepted in the United States.” She blamed this problem on “a personnel vacancy.”
In her response to the audit (below), Sanghvi admits that she had failed to meet the “…deadline for the submission of the Single Audit.”
You would think that, having been criticized in the 2023 audit for being late, she would be particularly diligent about ensuring the timeliness of the 2024 audit release. You would be wrong. She is late for the second consecutive year.
I am unaware of any previous Finance Commissioner failing to submit the audit on time, let alone failing to do so twice.
I contacted Commissioner Sanghvi, asking why, yet again, the audit is so late this year. In a phone conversation, she blamed the problem on the alleged failure of the Mayor’s office and the Department of Public Works.
I contacted Deputy Mayor JoAnne Kiernan and DPW Commissioner Chuck Marshall regarding Sanghvi’s allegation. Both officials told me that Sanghvi had not contacted them about any missing information.
I then sent the following email to Sanghvi, requesting any documentation that she or her staff had provided to the executive staff in either the Mayor’s office or the DPW regarding the urgent need for missing information.
The Email
John Kaufmann <
Tue, Nov 11, 7:00 PM (3 days ago)
to Minita, Tim, Dillon, John, Charles.Marshall
Minita:
Thank you for returning my call. As you are aware, we discussed the city’s lack of an audit. BST, our auditor, was required to provide the city with its audit by September 30. In turn, your office was required to submit the audit to the city council and the public by November 1.
You blamed the failure to meet the city’s deadlines on the mayor’s office and the Department of Public Works.
On September 25, you emailed DPW about missing information. They informed you that the information you were looking for had been uploaded to a folder shared by DPW and Finance on August 7. You had the information. If there was any confusion about the information, please let me know why you waited until September 25, five days before the audit was supposed to be completed, to contact DPW?
Regarding the mayor’s office, you never contacted the mayor or his deputy about this issue. Apparently, someone from your office has contacted the planning department regarding a matter involving grants. (In the previous audit, you were criticized for your failure to properly manage the fiscal elements of these grants.) Notably, your office did not raise the issue until mid-October. As the audit was required to be completed by September 30, can you explain why this was not addressed earlier? If this was pressing and not being done, why didn’t you email the mayor or his deputy? Please provide any documentation regarding the attempts made by your department to obtain this information.
Audits are at the heart of accountability and of transparency. What’s most alarming is that you do not seem particularly concerned about the failure of Finance to provide this audit, which should have been available before the election. Given the criticisms in the auditor’s 2023 report, one must wonder whether the 2024 audit will contain unflattering findings.
My key question to you is why you did not advise the council that you were unable to meet your obligation under the charter to provide them with this vital document?
Radio Silence
As usual, I received no response. I submit that there was no response because Sanghvi has no documentation. She is guilty of an inept attempt to cover up the failure in her office. I do not think it is unreasonable to consider that she has suppressed the latest 2024 audit report because it would reveal more problems in her office, particularly in a year when she was running for Supervisor.
Sanghvi’s October Surprise
As the Commissioner of Finance, Sanghvi is responsible for monitoring the city’s spending.
In May, the city agreed to fund RISE (the provider of a homeless shelter for the city) for approximately half a million dollars. Sanghvi not only voted for the resolution, but she waxed on about the value of their service for our city.
In October, Sanghvi presented a budget that cut not only the funding for RISE, but also for all the not-for-profits the city had been supporting for years, including the Senior Center. The reason? The city was suddenly facing a $3,500,000.00 deficit for the current fiscal year, which is not yet over.
How could she not have seen this coming?
By May, when she supported spending $500,000.00 on RISE, she should have been aware of the looming budget problems.
It is a testament to her mismanagement that, up until October, when she was finally required to prepare the budget for next year, she said nothing at the Council table about the financial threat facing the city.
It is worth noting that Sanghvi was warned last fall, during the preparation of the 2025 budget, that her fiscal assumptions were overly optimistic. At the time, Public Safety Commissioner Tim Coll urged her to raise the city tax rate to 2%, as allowed by state law. Although she had raised taxes her previous two years in office, in 2024, she was running for State Senate and refused.
As has become painfully obvious, her budget for 2025 badly underestimated expenses and overestimated income. This was not her first time doing this.
As this blog has documented over the last four years, Sanghvi is far more interested in drama at the Council table than in devoting the very demanding time required to fully understand the city’s finances.
Understanding Just How Bad Sanghvi’s Budgeting Is
Under our charter, the Finance Commissioner is responsible for preparing the city’s annual budget. This budget is intended to be the result of thorough analysis and consultations with other city departments. While it is expected to be revised once it is proposed to the Council, it is intended to be a serious document that the Finance Commissioner would want to be adopted as is. This is because, unless a majority of the Council overrules the Commissioner’s proposal, it is automatically the city’s budget for the following year.
Sanghvi’s desire to defund all the not-for-profits (RISE, the senior citizens’ center, Judge Vero’s outreach/homeless court, and even school crossing guards) was supposed to reflect her determination that while these organizations were valuable, other city needs would take precedence.
Coincidentally, in an election year, these major high-profile nonprofit organizations that were cut are funded by the Mayor’s office, and these cuts were often portrayed as coming from the Mayor, not Sanghvi.
According to reports, although the public has yet to see the changes, Sanghvi has reportedly now restored these cuts.
Sanghvi Blames Other Departments For The Failure Of Her Department and Gibberish and Confusion Over What The City’s Reserves Are
As of this Friday, November 14, Sanghvi was still not taking responsibility for the late audit and continued to demonstrate a fundamental ignorance of the city’s finances.
At the pre-agenda meeting on Friday morning, Sanghvi again blamed unnamed departments for the audit delay. She informed her colleagues that her office had met with the auditors in mid-October to discuss the remaining information they needed. As the audit was supposed to be completed by the end of September, she self-documents the tardiness of her own office in completing the audit.
In a budget hearing that same day, Sanghvi was asked to provide the Council with accurate information on the city’s fund balance. The “Unassigned Fund Balance” is the technical term for the city’s reserves. In addition to raising taxes, one way to address the city’s deficit is to tap into its reserve fund. It is obviously important to know the size of the reserve in order to determine how it may be used to address the city’s deficit.
In this clip, Commissioner Coll attempts to determine from Sanghvi how much the city has in reserve to address the proposed budget shortfalls.
The Finance Commissioner serves as the chief financial officer (CFO) of the city. It’s hard to believe, as documented in the following video, Sanghvi was unable to answer Commissioner Coll’s repeated requests regarding the city’s reserves to address the budget for next year. As her frustrated response indicated, she did not know, and this is particularly glaring because, given the repeated requests for this number, she should have had the figure readily available.
Further, note how she distances herself from her staff in the video clip. When trying to explain what the city’s reserves are, she notes that the numbers she is getting are from her staff referring to her deputy and budget director as “they” as her budget director is shaking her head. So these are not numbers that she has analyzed and that constitute her financial analysis. Apparently, she is unable to read these reports on her own and adopt them as her own.
After thirty years with the city’s Department of Public Works, Brian Wager retires next Saturday.
Those of you who use the transfer station to dispose of your garbage and recycling, have probably been assisted by Brian. Always patient and good-humored, Brian was always available to give a helping hand.
When you see Brian, thank him for his service and wish him well in his retirement.
This is a mailer BK Keramati sent to Saratoga Springs voters.
Up until he began his campaign for Saratoga Springs Commissioner of Public Works, my encounters with BK Keramati over the years had always been pleasant.
While I supported his opponent, the current Commissioner, Chuck Marshall, I believed Mr. Keramati did not have the history of toxic behavior that other candidates endorsed by the local Democrats this year had. I assumed, therefore, that if elected, he could be counted on to interact civilly with his fellow Council members even if he did not always agree with them.
I was unprepared then for his toxic mailings and social media assaults on his opponent. His campaign became just another example of the ugly and vituperative behavior that the city has endured from the Democratic leadership over the last four years. What is sad is that, given Keramati’s reputation up until this point and his vigorous door-to-door campaign, he might well have won without stooping to this kind of dirty politics. Instead, he focused on false statements and assumptions to run a campaign that essentially was an attempt at the character assassination of his opponent.
The Water Report
One of Keramati’s main themes was to accuse Chuck Marshall of “hiding” a study of Loughberry Lake. Many of the issues with this aspect of Mr. Keramati’s disturbing campaign were explored in an earlier article.
Suffice it to say that since Chuck Marshall immediately gave BK the report when asked and without making him FOIL for it (something that would have meant BK would have not gotten the report until after the election), it is difficult to understand how Mr. Keramati could, with any integrity, describe Marshall as being “caught covering up a serious report on our water quality” as he does in his mailer.
Fooling The Public
To provide credibility to his accusations, Keramati doctored an image of the Saratogian Newspaper (and others)in his mailers. This headline never existed. The tear at the bottom of the image was meant to convey authenticity.
An Assault On Marshall’s Integrity
Chuck received a considerable amount of money from, among others, individuals in the real estate industry.
BK could have legitimately pointed this out and raised questions about the extent to which they might influence Chuck’s tenure should he have won.
Instead, BK’s mailers went over the top, asserting that “he (Chuck) does what he is told” and he is “a tool of corporate interests and puts their priorities ahead of the people.”
Keramati provides no examples of Chuck having used his position to aid donors.
To the contrary, Chuck has had the opposite reputation as Planning Board Chair, where he was known for creating an environment of inclusion and respect, working with a board of diverse people, both politically and socially.
I recently spoke to Bill McTygue, who served on the Planning Board with Chuck. Bill had been on the Democratic Committee and probably supported Keramati, yet he was quite complimentary of Chuck’s leadership. I asked him specifically whether he observed any effort by Chuck to manipulate the board in favor of any developers. Bill said “no.” Bill observed that Chuck’s focus was on building a consensus among the board to make decisions.
So what does it say about Keramati’s character that he would tell voters that Marshal is a guy who “does what he’s told”?
Likewise, Keramati cites a donation Elise Stefanik made to Chuck’s campaign as evidence that “Chuck is a political partisan who goes along with his MAGA Republican leaders…putting politics ahead of the people.” Keramati again cites no evidence of this and appears uninterested in acknowledging that Chuck has publicly stated he did not vote for Donald Trump.
The Chuck Marshall I Wish People Had An Opportunity To Know.
Here is an anecdote that may help people to understand what kind of person Chuck Marshall is in comparison with the characterization of him put forward by Mr. Keramati.
When Chuck defeated Hank Kuczyinski, he inherited Michele Hill-Davis as his executive assistant, whom Kuczynski had hired. In addition to having been selected by his opponent, Ms. Hill-Davis is an active committee member of the city’s Democratic Committee.
I know for a fact that quite a few people told Chuck he needed to replace her. They argued that as his executive assistant, she would be privy to all the goings-on in his office. In effect, she would be a spy.
In classic Chuck style, he refused. He said he would not fire anyone without giving them a chance to demonstrate their ability to perform the work. Ms. Hill-Davis is still his executive assistant.
Unlike Keramati, Marshall’s campaign also reflected his character. It was positive without a breath of attack and recrimination.
Hope?
Keramati worked closely with Gordon Boyd, who energetically echoed and amplified Keramati’s campaign claims on his Facebook page, and Achim Bergmann, a professional political operative with national campaign experience and a member of the local Democratic committee. Both men BK chose to work with have a history of running toxic campaigns.
One can only hope that Keramati will show more civility and integrity at the Council table than he did in his campaign.
This blog has previously reported on the two years during which Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran promised numerous dates for deploying the Short Term Rental (STR) portal, which property owners can use to register.
According to the timestamp on his campaign Facebook page tonight (November 3), on the eve of the election, Moran claims that he deployed the software last Friday (October 31) and that his office is already processing applications.
This is a screenshot from Moran’s campaign Facebook page. The red line was added.
The problem is that, according to both the available documents and his remarks at the October 31 pre-agenda meeting, it was not up on Friday.
In this clip from the Friday meeting, he tells his colleagues that it would take twenty-four hours for the vendor to deploy it. He then says, presumably because the next day is the weekend, it would not be up until Tuesday.
So if it takes twenty-four hours and if he advised his colleagues of this on Friday morning, it could not possibly have been available that night.
In addition, this time stamped city website page from Saturday morning, November 1, shows that the page had not been updated since August,
