Dutchess County comptroller subpoenas Board of Elections after board's refusal to provide documents for audit
Comptroller Dan Aymar-Blair said Tuesday in a Zoom interview that preliminary documents he regularly receives from the BOE indicate the BOE may have skipped certain required procedures before paying temporary election workers.
Dutchess County Comptroller Dan Aymar-Blair said he is taking the extraordinary measure of sending subpoenas to the county's Board of Elections commissioners and staff because the board has been refusing his records requests since April.
Aymar-Blair said Tuesday in a Zoom interview that preliminary documents he regularly receives from the BOE indicate the BOE may have skipped certain required procedures before paying temporary election workers.
He has been requesting onboarding and candidate interview documents to conduct a more comprehensive audit of the BOE's payroll practices.
When asked whether the practices were negligently handled by the BOE, Aymar-Blair could not say.
"I'm not going to characterize it as sloppy because I don't know what's going on at the Board of Elections," he said. "That's what I'm trying to find out."
He said that because this has become a legal matter, he cannot elaborate further, nor provide copies of the subpoenas to News 12.
The BOE commissioners, Republican Eric Haight and Democrat Lisa Jessup, said Tuesday that some of the documents Aymar-Blair has been seeking are not within his purview. The commissioners told News 12 they have not yet received the subpoenas.
Haight said that if the subpoenas are for financial records, they will comply. If they are not related to finance, the fight will continue - possibly in a courtroom.
Aymar said that the bottom line is that the BOE payroll system needs to be reviewed, "but we need the full suite of documents and interviews with staff in order to conduct that audit on behalf of the taxpayers of Dutchess County."
Brendan Lawler, chairman of the county legislature's budget and finance committee, told News 12 Tuesday in an email he had just learned of the battle over the subpoenas and was not prepared to comment on the matter.
