The Jersey City Council heard and reacted to a presentation of the city’s 2025 financial audit conducted in the wake of the city’s budget crisis during today’s lengthy caucus meeting.
By Daniel Ulloa/Hudson County View
Finance Director Bill Viqueira introduced accountant Mark Bednarz, a partner at Donohue, Gironda, Doria & Tomkins, LLC, who gave a presentation of the audit to the council.
“We’re looking for a very general review,” City Council President Denise Ridley noted after the Mayor James Solomon administration released the 290-page audit Friday morning.
“There was no fixed assets inventory updated. This has been occurring over many years now,” Bednarz explained is a serious issue, though technically there is no standard operating procedure, as it varies by municipality.
He continued that under former Mayor Steven Fulop, there were approximately $94 million in deferred charges in last year’s budget, as the current administration highlighted last week, citing the audit.
“There is a reasonable possibility that the internal controls are deficient enough that an error will not be detected. In 2025 … there was a dust cloud around the city’s finances to be honest,” Bednarz noted.
“We still have a lot of issues with grant funds and trust funds. Every year there will be adjustments.”
Bednarz noted monthly reconciliations of budgets were recommended, which he said it would improve the city’s budget management.
“We had $500,000 in over-expenditures. This was an improvement over the previous year where there was $11 million in over-expenditures. We just noticed there was a lot of open purchase orders. We recommend the city review them,” he added.
Bednarz said money could be saved that way, adding that $71,000 in expenses from a vendor were not approved, as well as that there were some issues with overtime reports.
“We identified one employee who had four hours of overtime we could not substantiate,” he cited as an example, noting that descriptions for overtime were necessary to justify them.
“We had difficulty with some of the departments agreeing on the chain of cash flow … We were able to eventually verify much of that.”
He also said there should be a standard process to record daily deposits.
“If capital funds monies were used for an operational cost … that could be a violation of the bond,” Bednarz expressed.
Another problem was that the Municipal Court couldn’t provide certain financial documents.
“I’m going to ask that we take some time to review this,” Ridley said after the presentation.
Ward F Councilman Frank “Educational” Gilmore asked how long Bednarz’s firm has been doing the city’s audits.
“Close to 20 years,” Bednarz noted.
Gilmore was outraged that $86,000 had been spent on one vendor, when only $15,000 was approved by the City Council for payment.
“… Somebody should be put in jail for this misappropriation of funds! This is criminal!” he exclaimed.
Councilman at-Large Michael Griffin said the city should start doing monthly appropriations, something he did not believe had been done before.
“Sure Councilman. That’s addressed in the corrective action plan … It is something we have made progress on. It is important because it allows us to close the books at the end of the year that much faster,” Viqueira responded.
Gilmore then declared that any city employees who were in charge of financial oversight needed to be terminated.
He said there were “17 instances of what I’m going to say is criminal activity! … I can see why the public is outraged.”
Pressing forward, Gilmore asked for the overpaid vendor to be named, noting they may have a relative in City Hall or donated to a political campaign..
“Is there any way we can go after our funds?” Gilmore asked.
“The vendor name was provided,” Bednarz said to answer the previous question.
“Where is it located?” Griffin asked.
“I provided it to the Administration,” Bednarz replied.
“Provide it to the public!” Gilmore exclaimed.
“We’re going to add that as a council request for the vendor info. I will send that request myself,” Ridley explained.
Griffin followed up by asking which department was paid the $86,000, to which Bednarz said it was for HVAC services and he couldn’t recall exactly where it was off hand.
Viqueira also pointed out that the council could accept the audit via resolution any time in the next 45 days.
“We will put some of this audit stuff on the agenda in September … It is the council’s preference to hold off on the corrective action plan until we review the budget,” replied Ridley.
“We are proposing to do an RFP (request for proposals) to do an appraisal and evaluation of the city’s fixed assets to have a better understanding of this finding,” Viqueira concluded.
