POUGHKEEPSIE – Citing the Dutchess County Board of Elections commissioners’ failure to provide information for an audit of the election worker payroll process, County Comptroller Dan Aymar-Blair has issued subpoenas for those documents.
The controversy began when Aymar-Blair notified the board of elections of an audit, but Elections Commissioners Erik Haight and Lisa Jessup argued the comptroller did not have the authority to conduct the scope of it.
After three months of failure to provide the information, the comptroller issued the subpoenas maintaining the county administrative code allows for such action if the information is not forthcoming.
Haight and Jessup told Mid-Hudson News in a joint statement on Monday that they could not comment on the subpoenas at this time because they had yet to receive them.
Aymar-Blair maintains the elections commissioners have failed to present any applicable legal argument to justify their refusal to provide the information requested. He said the comptroller’s office has performed similar audits in 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2020.
“We provided the BOE with ample time to comply and offered to adapt the plan around their busy calendar,” Amar-Blair said in a statement. “As I have always said, we audit county departments and partners to offer recommendations for making government financial operations more efficient, a high priority for county taxpayers.”
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