PIERMONT MAYOR BRUCE TUCKER’S US$367,938 SCAM.
At this point in time, all of Piermont, Orangetown, and Rockland County know that Auditors from the New York State Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) have been all over Mayor Bruce Tucker’s books and records.
Reports are that OSC spent at least a month at Piermont Village Hall poring over the books and records of the 2,500-resident village and its lame-duck Mayor. The NYS Comptroller’s “Risk Assessment” was triggered by, inter alia, (1) Mayor Bruce Tucker’s strident refusal to timely file financials for inclusion in the OSC Fiscal Stress Monitoring System for each prior year of his term since 2018, and (2) Mayor Bruce Tucker’s rank mismanagement of Piermont finances leading to an approximate US$9,000,000 loss in Net Position over Tucker’s 7+ years in office.
1.
It therefore may seem counterintuitive to hear Bruce Tucker laud 0% tax increases for some Piermont homes this year. Yet Tucker is not running for re-election as Mayor, and Tucker’s Board of Trustees enemy Nate Mitchell is running for Piermont Mayor unopposed. Therefore, Mayor Tucker is simply kicking the can down the road - seeking to set up his sworn adversary Nate Mitchell for a massive Piermont tax increase in 2026. Bruce Tucker’s disastrous reign as Mayor of Piermont will remain the gift that keeps on giving.
2.
It therefore may also seem counterintuitive to read that at least one of the Auditors from the New York State Comptroller’s Office called-out the fuzzy-set accounting of Bruce Tucker and the Village of Piermont, for maintaining an “Unassigned Fund Balance” that was too big:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/piermont-garmento-mayor-bruce-tucker.html
You will recall that this is the same “Unassigned Fund Balance” in the dollar-amount of US$3,210,196, which Bruce Tucker touted last year to, inter alia, justify the upkeep of the Village of Piermont’s bond rating. This is the world of arcane municipal finance for you. A public official like Bruce Tucker who cannot even prevent the Piermont Pier from crumbling into the Hudson River, begging residents for donations therefor - a public official like Bruce Tucker who deploys a Piermont non-profit to beg residents for a lousy US$10,000 for Christmas lights a few months ago - now slammed by the New York State Comptroller for, in essence, keeping too much cash on hand.
Yet look more carefully and calculate.
The New York State Comptroller Auditor advised Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker to limit his Unassigned Fund Balance to “20% of the total budget”.
But Tucker, on-record on April 15, 2025, deliberately disregards the carefully-considered recommendation of the NYS Comptroller Auditor. Bruce Tucker, the man who failed at seemingly every business venture in which he ever engaged since college, essentially replies “No, I’m taking 25% instead - and if a balance exceeds 25%, then I can use it for capital project emergency repairs.”:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/piermont-garmento-mayor-bruce-tucker.html
Mayor Tucker then has a Resolution prepared to that effect that reads like this, and sets it up for a May 13, 2025 Board of Trustees vote:
So this all raises the key question. What is the Village of Piermont “total budget”?
Well, a review of a document posted to the Village of Piermont Internet website titled “2026 Adopted Budget - Village of Piermont 04-15-2025” does not actually use the phrase “total budget” anywhere in its 13 pages:
https://www.piermont-ny.gov/government/clerks_office/fiscal_budget.php#outer-44sub-333
However, on the first and last page of that 13-page document, we find parallel bold-face all-CAPS references to both “TOTAL REVENUES INCLUDING TAXES” and “TOTAL GENERAL FUND”, each in the identical dollar-amount of US$7,358,767. Therefore, if only for the sake of this mathematical exercise to follow, let’s use that US$7,358,767 dollar-figure, for now, as the equivalent of OSC’s intended “total budget” number. (That said, if someone furnishes me a credible larger number, then I will re-calculate and re-post to this Blog – but I know that a “total budget” by definition would have to be either equal to or else larger than either Piermont “total revenues” or “total general fund” for the year).
The NYS Comptroller Auditor therefore advised Bruce Tucker that the Piermont “Unassigned Fund Balance” should be limited to “20% of the total budget” – or, in this case, limited to the dollar-figure of US$1,471,753 (and forty cents).
Whoa... First, keep in mind that this US$1,471,753 is less than half of the US$3,210,196 “Unassigned Fund Balance” that Bruce Tucker claimed and took last year in 2024, in order to try to hypnotize the Wall Street bond market into acquiescence to the continuation of Piermont’s artificially-enhanced bond rating. Obviously, the NYS Comptroller Auditor became wise to Bruce Tucker’s charade in this regard during the recent “Risk Assessment” of Piermont’s finances commencing in 2024. Now, Wall Street will become wise to Tucker’s charade, too - and I know the guy that will tell Wall Street.
Therefore, we start with the fundamental proposition that Bruce Tucker is desperate to try to artificially prop-up Piermont’s financial picture, to make Piermont look richer than it is – all while his pathetic Pier tip is crumbling into the Hudson River. So, what does Bruce Tucker do? He deliberately defies the NYS Comptroller Auditor’s recommendation, and seeks to enact a “25% of the total budget” cap on the Unassigned Fund Balance instead of a “20% of the total budget” cap.
Now, 5% may not sound like much of a differential to you in the abstract, but as those in government finance or wealth management should already be well aware, it really depends upon what you are multiplying that 5% against.
Bruce Tucker’s ipse dixit inflated 25% of a US$7,358,767 Piermont “total budget” is US$1,839,691 (and seventy-five cents).
Now, subtract the Comptroller’s more reasoned “20% of total budget” figure - US$1,471,753 - from Tucker’s US$1,839,691… US$1,839,691 minus US$1,471,753…
You arrive at US$367,938.
That’s right. By deliberately and blatantly contravening the clear recommendation of the NYS Comptroller Auditor, and by therefore using a self-servingly inflated 25% cap in lieu of a 20% cap, Bruce Tucker is in effect seeking to claim and keep an incremental US$367,938 cash-on-hand equivalent as an additional “Unassigned Fund Balance”. That’s not mayoral discretion. That’s a scam.
Sure, Tucker could be remitting this same dollar-amount back to the overtaxed Piermont residents. But he’s not.
Sure, Tucker could be following the NYS Comptroller Auditor’s advice. But he’s not.
Bruce Tucker wants to pretend to Wall Street that Piermont is economically-sound. But it’s not.
For that matter, beyond Bruce Tucker’s US$367,938 scam perpetrated upon Piermont residents, the NYS Comptroller, and the Wall Street bond market, could there be even further additional reasons why Bruce Tucker thinks that he needs to keep an incremental US$367,938 cash-on-hand equivalent?
Yes. Yes there are.
I.
Bruce Tucker and the Village of Piermont are about to get tied-up in a series of Article 78 litigations and other civil lawsuits - over his contemptible overdevelopment initiatives, falsified environmental certifications, and the inept mishandling of Piermont’s first-ever Comprehensive Plan. Those litigations will cost money. Tucker also may need to pay off further or outstanding costs and fees relating to the senseless prior litigation that he already fomented last year.
II.
Based upon admissions made by Bruce Tucker and by Piermont’s publicist-“planner” Max Stach, as of April 15, 2025, Piermont grant monies were in danger of being required to be refunded back to the original grantor or grantors – in particular, if Piermont needed to indicate a “Pos Dec” or “Positive Declaration” in connection with the environmental assessment of its Comprehensive Plan:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/dumping-max-stach-its-gas.html
This scenario could also in theory materialize, if the rushed Village of Piermont “adoption” of the flawed and typo-ridden Comprehensive Plan on April 29, 2025 is later adjudicated to be fatally-defective and therefore void ab initio. A citizen inquiry has commenced into the questions as to how Bruce Tucker and the Village of Piermont may have “obtained” grant monies prematurely from other state and federal agencies, and whether Bruce Tucker or anyone else may have made misrepresentations in order to snatch that grant money:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/hey-sylvia-meet-mister-grant.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/sure-he-may-be-flounder-but-hes-our.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/sylvia-gets-jammed-up.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/my-aim-is-true-all-right.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/and-bruce-has-fun-fun-fun-till-his.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/high-above-cayugas-waters.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/piermont-grant-monies-back-to-nard-dog.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/dumping-max-stach-its-gas.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-piermont-grant-money-inquiry.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/your-hometown.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/piermont-grant-money-dug-up.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/more-otown-for-piermont-and-garmento.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-county-wide-search-for-piermont.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/soil-and-water.html
In other words, Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker is desperate.
He is desperate to try to keep monies on-hand as a hedge against his own long-standing recidivist pattern of malfeasance.
I grant you, he is still in office, and he has not completely crashed and burned. Yet.
Yet please remember, Piermont residents. When Bruce Tucker blows through any of that incremental US$367,938 that he just wrested away from the New York State Comptroller recommendation – that was your money that he blew through.
At this point in time, all of Piermont, Orangetown, and Rockland County know that Auditors from the New York State Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) have been all over Mayor Bruce Tucker’s books and records.
Reports are that OSC spent at least a month at Piermont Village Hall poring over the books and records of the 2,500-resident village and its lame-duck Mayor. The NYS Comptroller’s “Risk Assessment” was triggered by, inter alia, (1) Mayor Bruce Tucker’s strident refusal to timely file financials for inclusion in the OSC Fiscal Stress Monitoring System for each prior year of his term since 2018, and (2) Mayor Bruce Tucker’s rank mismanagement of Piermont finances leading to an approximate US$9,000,000 loss in Net Position over Tucker’s 7+ years in office.
1.
It therefore may seem counterintuitive to hear Bruce Tucker laud 0% tax increases for some Piermont homes this year. Yet Tucker is not running for re-election as Mayor, and Tucker’s Board of Trustees enemy Nate Mitchell is running for Piermont Mayor unopposed. Therefore, Mayor Tucker is simply kicking the can down the road - seeking to set up his sworn adversary Nate Mitchell for a massive Piermont tax increase in 2026. Bruce Tucker’s disastrous reign as Mayor of Piermont will remain the gift that keeps on giving.
2.
It therefore may also seem counterintuitive to read that at least one of the Auditors from the New York State Comptroller’s Office called-out the fuzzy-set accounting of Bruce Tucker and the Village of Piermont, for maintaining an “Unassigned Fund Balance” that was too big:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/piermont-garmento-mayor-bruce-tucker.html
You will recall that this is the same “Unassigned Fund Balance” in the dollar-amount of US$3,210,196, which Bruce Tucker touted last year to, inter alia, justify the upkeep of the Village of Piermont’s bond rating. This is the world of arcane municipal finance for you. A public official like Bruce Tucker who cannot even prevent the Piermont Pier from crumbling into the Hudson River, begging residents for donations therefor - a public official like Bruce Tucker who deploys a Piermont non-profit to beg residents for a lousy US$10,000 for Christmas lights a few months ago - now slammed by the New York State Comptroller for, in essence, keeping too much cash on hand.
Yet look more carefully and calculate.
The New York State Comptroller Auditor advised Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker to limit his Unassigned Fund Balance to “20% of the total budget”.
But Tucker, on-record on April 15, 2025, deliberately disregards the carefully-considered recommendation of the NYS Comptroller Auditor. Bruce Tucker, the man who failed at seemingly every business venture in which he ever engaged since college, essentially replies “No, I’m taking 25% instead - and if a balance exceeds 25%, then I can use it for capital project emergency repairs.”:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/piermont-garmento-mayor-bruce-tucker.html
Mayor Tucker then has a Resolution prepared to that effect that reads like this, and sets it up for a May 13, 2025 Board of Trustees vote:
So this all raises the key question. What is the Village of Piermont “total budget”?
Well, a review of a document posted to the Village of Piermont Internet website titled “2026 Adopted Budget - Village of Piermont 04-15-2025” does not actually use the phrase “total budget” anywhere in its 13 pages:
https://www.piermont-ny.gov/government/clerks_office/fiscal_budget.php#outer-44sub-333
However, on the first and last page of that 13-page document, we find parallel bold-face all-CAPS references to both “TOTAL REVENUES INCLUDING TAXES” and “TOTAL GENERAL FUND”, each in the identical dollar-amount of US$7,358,767. Therefore, if only for the sake of this mathematical exercise to follow, let’s use that US$7,358,767 dollar-figure, for now, as the equivalent of OSC’s intended “total budget” number. (That said, if someone furnishes me a credible larger number, then I will re-calculate and re-post to this Blog – but I know that a “total budget” by definition would have to be either equal to or else larger than either Piermont “total revenues” or “total general fund” for the year).
The NYS Comptroller Auditor therefore advised Bruce Tucker that the Piermont “Unassigned Fund Balance” should be limited to “20% of the total budget” – or, in this case, limited to the dollar-figure of US$1,471,753 (and forty cents).
Whoa... First, keep in mind that this US$1,471,753 is less than half of the US$3,210,196 “Unassigned Fund Balance” that Bruce Tucker claimed and took last year in 2024, in order to try to hypnotize the Wall Street bond market into acquiescence to the continuation of Piermont’s artificially-enhanced bond rating. Obviously, the NYS Comptroller Auditor became wise to Bruce Tucker’s charade in this regard during the recent “Risk Assessment” of Piermont’s finances commencing in 2024. Now, Wall Street will become wise to Tucker’s charade, too - and I know the guy that will tell Wall Street.
Therefore, we start with the fundamental proposition that Bruce Tucker is desperate to try to artificially prop-up Piermont’s financial picture, to make Piermont look richer than it is – all while his pathetic Pier tip is crumbling into the Hudson River. So, what does Bruce Tucker do? He deliberately defies the NYS Comptroller Auditor’s recommendation, and seeks to enact a “25% of the total budget” cap on the Unassigned Fund Balance instead of a “20% of the total budget” cap.
Now, 5% may not sound like much of a differential to you in the abstract, but as those in government finance or wealth management should already be well aware, it really depends upon what you are multiplying that 5% against.
Bruce Tucker’s ipse dixit inflated 25% of a US$7,358,767 Piermont “total budget” is US$1,839,691 (and seventy-five cents).
Now, subtract the Comptroller’s more reasoned “20% of total budget” figure - US$1,471,753 - from Tucker’s US$1,839,691… US$1,839,691 minus US$1,471,753…
You arrive at US$367,938.
That’s right. By deliberately and blatantly contravening the clear recommendation of the NYS Comptroller Auditor, and by therefore using a self-servingly inflated 25% cap in lieu of a 20% cap, Bruce Tucker is in effect seeking to claim and keep an incremental US$367,938 cash-on-hand equivalent as an additional “Unassigned Fund Balance”. That’s not mayoral discretion. That’s a scam.
Sure, Tucker could be remitting this same dollar-amount back to the overtaxed Piermont residents. But he’s not.
Sure, Tucker could be following the NYS Comptroller Auditor’s advice. But he’s not.
Bruce Tucker wants to pretend to Wall Street that Piermont is economically-sound. But it’s not.
For that matter, beyond Bruce Tucker’s US$367,938 scam perpetrated upon Piermont residents, the NYS Comptroller, and the Wall Street bond market, could there be even further additional reasons why Bruce Tucker thinks that he needs to keep an incremental US$367,938 cash-on-hand equivalent?
Yes. Yes there are.
I.
Bruce Tucker and the Village of Piermont are about to get tied-up in a series of Article 78 litigations and other civil lawsuits - over his contemptible overdevelopment initiatives, falsified environmental certifications, and the inept mishandling of Piermont’s first-ever Comprehensive Plan. Those litigations will cost money. Tucker also may need to pay off further or outstanding costs and fees relating to the senseless prior litigation that he already fomented last year.
II.
Based upon admissions made by Bruce Tucker and by Piermont’s publicist-“planner” Max Stach, as of April 15, 2025, Piermont grant monies were in danger of being required to be refunded back to the original grantor or grantors – in particular, if Piermont needed to indicate a “Pos Dec” or “Positive Declaration” in connection with the environmental assessment of its Comprehensive Plan:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/dumping-max-stach-its-gas.html
This scenario could also in theory materialize, if the rushed Village of Piermont “adoption” of the flawed and typo-ridden Comprehensive Plan on April 29, 2025 is later adjudicated to be fatally-defective and therefore void ab initio. A citizen inquiry has commenced into the questions as to how Bruce Tucker and the Village of Piermont may have “obtained” grant monies prematurely from other state and federal agencies, and whether Bruce Tucker or anyone else may have made misrepresentations in order to snatch that grant money:
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/hey-sylvia-meet-mister-grant.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/sure-he-may-be-flounder-but-hes-our.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/sylvia-gets-jammed-up.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/my-aim-is-true-all-right.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/and-bruce-has-fun-fun-fun-till-his.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/high-above-cayugas-waters.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/piermont-grant-monies-back-to-nard-dog.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/dumping-max-stach-its-gas.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-piermont-grant-money-inquiry.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/your-hometown.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/piermont-grant-money-dug-up.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/more-otown-for-piermont-and-garmento.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-county-wide-search-for-piermont.html
https://unhandpiermont.blogspot.com/2025/05/soil-and-water.html
In other words, Piermont Mayor Bruce Tucker is desperate.
He is desperate to try to keep monies on-hand as a hedge against his own long-standing recidivist pattern of malfeasance.
I grant you, he is still in office, and he has not completely crashed and burned. Yet.
Yet please remember, Piermont residents. When Bruce Tucker blows through any of that incremental US$367,938 that he just wrested away from the New York State Comptroller recommendation – that was your money that he blew through.
