I’ve had several residents reach out asking about what took place at last night’s village board meeting.
Right before the public comment section began, Trustee Niznik read a lengthy 10-minute prepared statement. Although she had previously promised to release this statement days in advance, she chose to hold it until the absolute last minute. By dropping a complex, 10-minute speech right as public comments were starting, residents were left with zero time to digest, research, or properly respond to her claims.
There is a lot to dissect in those 10 minutes, but let’s start with a critical issue: the missing documentation for the Water and Sewer Fund transfers.
Just talk – no Documentation
During the meeting, Trustee Niznik addressed the large sums of money (over $500,000) moved from the Water and Sewer Funds into the General Fund in October of 2025. She asserted that the money was used properly, pointing back to a preliminary explanation given by the treasurer at the April meeting.
While verbal explanations provide context, words are not fiscal records.
In government, trust is built on verifiable documentation, not oral assurances. Here are the facts:
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Beyond verbal comments at a meeting, no itemized ledger, accounting breakdown, or official documentation showing the specific line-item expenditures of these funds has been made available to the public.
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Documentation has not been produced even when formally requested through Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests.
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Members of the Water Board themselves, who hold a direct responsibility to oversee the utility fund, demanded to see the paper trail showing where these funds went, yet no documentation was ever provided to them.
If the trustees are sensitive about taxpayers asking questions or expressing distrust, the solution isn’t to hold prepared statements until the last second or offer more verbal explanations. The solution is to show the financial documents.
How neighboring communities operate versus how our Village Board operates:
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Other Communities: Communities across Dutchess County operate under formal, written Interfund Transfer Policies and Cost Allocation Plans. Before a single dollar moves from a water fund to a general fund, rules require written line-item justifications and itemized vouchers attached directly to the resolution.
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The Village of Wappingers Falls: The Village has NO written Interfund Transfer Policy. In fact, the NYS Comptroller’s audits explicitly flagged the Board for operating without key written financial policies—and 11 of 13 state oversight recommendations remain unimplemented.
Instead of following state guidelines or written procedures, this Board moves hundreds of thousands of dollars on verbal assurances alone. They vote blindly without seeing itemized receipts, and when residents ask for the paper trail, they get silence that lasts nearly a year.
Potential for a Cover-Up
An 8-month failure to produce basic ledger records creates the exact environment where cover-ups happen. When documentation isn’t provided at the time cash moves, it creates the window to reclassify past general expenses after the fact—making an unjustified transfer look legitimate on paper months later.
The Bottom Line:
You don’t expand your administrative authority over a public utility when you haven’t even written basic rules to manage the money transparently. If neighboring towns in Dutchess County can attach itemized paper trails to every transfer, why can’t Wappingers Falls?
Instead of reading a last-minute statement and relying on verbal explanations, show the documentation for the $500,000 in transfers from water/sewer to the general fund. Getting those records should just take the click of a mouse.