The Comptroller Race Nobody Is Watching, Dutchess Votes to Cover Its Flock Cameras, and Questions After the Children's Home of Kingston Closure

0:00Good afternoon from the Hudson Valley. It is Wednesday, October twenty-first, three days before early voting opens in New York. There is a statewide race most voters cannot assess, a Dutchess County legislature that voted unanimously to physically cover its own surveillance cameras, and a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old children's home in Kingston that has reportedly closed with more questions than answers. I'm Noelle. The New York State Comptroller is the state's independently elected chief financial officer, chief auditor, and sole trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund. As of June thirtieth, twenty twenty-six, that fund held an estimated three hundred and nine point seven billion dollars. In the fiscal year ended March thirty-first, twenty twenty-six, it paid sixteen point eight billion dollars in benefits to five hundred and thirty-five thousand four hundred and twenty-seven annuitants. The office also holds twenty-one billion dollars in unclaimed funds. The job pays two hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year on a four-year term. The race to hold it is the least watched on the ballot. Thomas

1:02DiNapoli, seventy-two, Democrat and Working Families Party, has held the office since February twenty-seven. Voters elected him in twenty ten, twenty fourteen, twenty eighteen, and twenty twenty-two, most recently by fifty-seven to forty-two percent. He seeks a fifth full term. His challenger is Joseph Hernandez, fifty-three, Republican and Conservative Party. Hernandez came to the United States from Cuba in nineteen eighty at age seven, holds degrees from the University of Florida, Yale, and Oxford, has spent more than twenty-five years in biotechnology and healthcare, and has never held public office. A Siena poll conducted September eleventh to seventeenth, twenty twenty-six, put DiNapoli ahead fifty-six to thirty-three. Forty percent of voters said they did not know enough to rate DiNapoli after nineteen years in office. Seventy-one percent said the same about Hernandez. The fund returned an estimated eleven point nine four percent in the fiscal year ended March thirty-first, twenty twenty-six. Hernandez's sharpest campaign promise

2:03is to return the twenty-one billion dollars in unclaimed funds to its owners within his first year. Three things travel with that pledge. First, DiNapoli's office says privacy laws bar it from using tax return data to locate owners. Second, Hernandez's own campaign plan acknowledges that statutory authority may be needed, meaning the first-year timeline depends on the legislature changing the law. Third, a significant portion of those funds belong to owners who are deceased, dissolved, or unlocatable by means currently available. On fees, Hernandez claims, as reported by the Legislative Gazette, that outside investment management fees rose from one hundred and seventy-four million dollars when DiNapoli took office to eight hundred and sixty-two million dollars in twenty twenty-six, an almost four hundred percent increase. Those figures are Hernandez's claims. Set against the fund's growth from well under two hundred billion dollars to approximately three hundred and ten billion dollars over the same period, fees as a share of assets rose far less than the raw totals suggest. The Comptroller is on the ballot Tuesday, November third,

3:07twenty twenty-six. Polls open six in the morning to nine at night. Early voting runs Saturday, October twenty-fourth, through Sunday, November first. Registration closes October twenty-fourth. That date is also Golden Day, when an unregistered voter can register and vote the same day. On October thirteenth, the Dutchess County Legislature voted unanimously to direct that any county Flock Safety license plate reader still installed on November first be physically covered with opaque, non-damaging material. The resolution was introduced by Legislator Chris Drago, a Democrat from Red Hook. It applies only to the sixty-five cameras the county owns. Another three hundred and seventy-two cameras sit on private land or on roads controlled by the state and municipalities, and this resolution does not reach them. Covering here means physically covering the cameras so the public can see they are not in use. It has nothing to do with paying for them. The county's contract with Flock expired in August. County Executive Sue Serino said she would not renew it. On October fifteenth, Serino let the measure become law without her signature. In her

4:11words,"The proper steps to remove these cameras are already underway." The county attorney issued a demand notice on September thirtieth, telling Flock to remove its hardware by October thirtieth. For that reason, Serino said,"The resolution unnecessarily exposes the county to potential liability resulting from equipment damage during removal." Her objection is about liability and timing, not support for the cameras. Two deadlines now sit two days apart. Flock must remove hardware by October thirtieth, and the legislature's resolution requires covering by November first. The last story comes with limits on what we can say, and those limits are part of the story. On Tuesday, Hudson Valley One reported that questions are swirling around the unexpected closure of the Children's Home of Kingston following a state audit. The home has operated for one hundred and fifty years at Twenty-Six Grove Street in Kingston, serving youth ages ten to twenty-one, most with a history of trauma and emotional or behavioral challenges. Hudson Valley One's full report was not available for this broadcast. The State Comptroller's office verified audit

5:15number twenty twenty-five S seven. For the three fiscal years ended June thirtieth, twenty twenty-two, the home reported about six million two hundred and eighty-nine thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight dollars in reimbursable costs. Auditors identified six hundred and seventy thousand five hundred and forty-nine dollars in costs that did not comply with state rules. The four largest pieces: two hundred and one thousand five hundred and eighteen dollars in costs that lacked required records or invoices, one hundred and ninety-eight thousand three hundred and thirty-five dollars for one-to-one aides charged to the wrong program, one hundred and eighteen thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight dollars in non-program personnel costs, and one hundred and seven thousand two hundred and thirty-six dollars in over-allocated facility-related expenses. The audit does not order a closure. Nothing verified for this broadcast establishes that the audit caused the closure. Those are two separate facts, and the connection between them has not been established. What remains

6:15unknown and must be named: the closure timeline, who was informed and when, how many residents and staff are affected, where the youth the home served will go, and any statement from the home or from a state agency. That is the Wednesday midday edition. The least-watched race on the ballot holds a three hundred and nine point seven billion dollar pension fund and a twenty-one billion dollar first-year promise that travels with conditions its author has not publicly resolved. Dutchess County has voted unanimously to physically cover its Flock cameras, and its county executive is letting that order become law without her name on it. In Kingston, a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old children's home has reportedly closed, with the verified record so far being a cost audit, not an explanation. Stay with us.