Comptroller eyes reform on budget, procedures
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Just days into her job as Dunkirk's new city comptroller, Tracy Smith-Dengler knows important work is in her future. She also knows there is much to learn.
"It is so far working out to be exactly as expected -- at the bottom of a very large curve," Smith-Dengler said during an interview with the OBSERVER in her office.
"One of the things that I have noted that is disabling us across the board, is we do not really have any established procedures for how we conduct business in City Hall -- whatever office it might be," Smith-Dengler said.
She "was very pleased to learn" there is a project ongoing to "examine our charter and find out if any of that, or our codes, needs to be updated. A part of the project is also going to be helping us to develop those procedures... how exactly do we pay a bill, how do we issue a purchase order, how do we receive payments that are coming in, those sort of things. I think that will help all of us to maintain consistency and make sure that we are following the letters of the law outlined by (the state)."
Smith-Dengler understands that financial mismanagement preceded her at City Hall. She is not unfamiliar with such an environment.
The longtime business administrator for BOCES said that "this is something we encountered also in the educational field. I started my career in public education just before some of the biggest fraud cases that have ever been uncovered in the state were in the works. It was discovered at that time, that although having these procedures outlined and documented -- having an accounting procedures manual, for example -- are things that are part of the responsibility that school districts and municipalities are supposed to have, they weren't necessarily details that were paid attention to until those terrible things happened. Then all of a sudden, you start looking more deeply and find they're missing in a lot of places."
She later acknowledged, "We need to be able to say, 'These are the steps we go through in order to get that business taken care of.' One of the initiatives I have taken is we are working on the 2027 budget right now. ... One of the things I found to be challenging within the budget when I went through what it looks like right now, is it's very disorganized."
A first step on budget reform is "the department heads are outlining their needs for the coming year. We are reorganizing the structure of the budget to put (departmental) activities under an appropriate umbrella." For example, "What you will see in the 2027 budget is there is a Department of Treasury that includes the account clerk office, my title, the Department of Fiscal Affairs -- all of those things will be under the Department of Treasury umbrella."
The goal is to make the city budget "a little more easy-to-read document. I think the average person that doesn't study budget documents on a daily basis would look at (the current budget) and struggle to figure out, 'How does this piece fit with that piece?'"
However, when it comes to "separation and segregation of duties, we're still feeling our way through. Once again, this is a brand new title. It’s never existed before, so we're writing the script where the responsibilities fall for this. I am very cognizant of the fact that I am a brand new position, a brand new person in a brand new role. I also recognize that change is hard for a lot of people."
As for "the big sweeping changes that might be coming down the road," Smith-Dengler said she does not know what those are yet.
"We are still evaluating what are we, what do we have, what do we need, and where do we need to go from here. I suspect all of those changes are going to be a joint effort between the mayor’s office, the council, myself, and the entire team we have below us."
She added, "Right now, I think our goal is to stabilize our operations, to get us back on a sound operational footing so we can start rebuilding fund balance" and fund items that are not absolutely necessary to day-to-day operations.