HERKIMER, N.Y. (WUTR/WFXV/WPNY) – Allegations of a lack of transparency along with the overall dishonesty of the Sherry Administration were once again highlighted by the public during Monday night’s Village of Herkimer, Board of Trustees meeting.
Residents of the Village of Herkimer continue to be frustrated by feelings of deceit and deception by Mayor Dana Sherry.
“A couple of meetings ago I asked a question about the space behind the library called the museum, and I was told that we didn’t spend any money there,” said Chris Lotey, resident of Herkimer. “But amazingly, I have receipts for stuff that was spent there.”
“So, I kind of feel very slighted,” he explained, “It just makes it look like the village is hiding more stuff from people.”
“The news is here, everyone’s here, these taxpayers are all here – They just want the truth. They want honest, truthful answers from the people that we elected to administrate our village.”
While that issue has yet to be resolved due to a lack of response from the mayor and board, another hot topic was the village’s finances – Mayor Sherry highlights, once again, that this is a problem she walked into.
“Our general fund balance is now $603,596, that’s our best guess,” said Mayor Sherry, “That’s with the projected numbers from March to May.”
She continued, “Our projected early June expenses are $640,000, so you can do the math here. There’s a difference of around $37,000 – negative $37,000.”
“It’s a rule of thumb to have six months of expenses in the coffers, so that would’ve been, with our monthly expenses averaging $400,000, we should have $2.4 million in our general fund.”
“What do we have?” said Sherry, “We have $603,000, and these are due to the short falls, the budgetary shortfalls of 2022 and 2023.”
Sherry claims that the village has a deficit of $37,000, however, the PBA President of the Police Union later provided me with documents showing that this is false, and that the village has a projected balance of $5.2 million dollars.
They obtained this information via FOIL while looking into the finances of the village for the purpose of contract negotiations.
While each party’s claim has yet to be confirmed, there is a notable gap between the two alleged balances, so I’ll be following up with the Village of Herkimer’s attorney, Vincent Rossi, in the next few weeks to find out just exactly what is going on.
