Month: April 2026

Todd Shimkus, the president of the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, recently met with the Saratoga Springs Commissioner of Public Safety to demand that he waive payment for the invoices the Chamber had received for services performed by the Fire Department for special events the Chamber had held in the city. The meeting did not go well.

According to the Chamber’s federal 990 form, Shimkus’ compensation for being the Chamber president is:

• Base salary (recent filings): about $198,000–$205,000 per year
• Additional compensation/benefits: roughly $29,000–$35,000

👉 That puts his total annual compensation typically in the ~$225,000–$240,000 range in recent years.

At the risk of appearing snarky, this blogger has observed that Mr. Shimkus’s salary does not begin to match his ego or the imperious, toxic way he often deals with people..

Commissioner Coll brought Shimkus’s demand for a fee waiver to the City Council for a discussion and vote. The Council voted unanimously not to waive the fees, and was also clearly disturbed about how extensive these apparent waivers were in the city.

Commissioner of Public Works BK Keramati said there was an established practice in his department of providing services for the Chamber that cost his department money but not charging them for it. He found it difficult to say no.

Accounts Commissioner Jess Troisi pointed out that it was the taxpayer who ended up paying for the expenses of putting on special events when fees were waived whether they supported the event or not.

Commissioner of Finance JoAnne Kiernan explained to her colleagues that the city’s written procedures are clear. Only the Council has the authority to waive special event fees. Any Commissioner waiving fees without Council consent would have acted improperly.

Commissioner Coll said it had come to his attention that special events fees had been waived arbitrarily in the Accounts department under the previous administration and asked if the Finance Department could do an audit to determine the extent of this practice.

The Council then supported Kiernan’s offer to audit the Accounts Department.

An Unhealthy Relationship?

Todd Shimkus enjoyed a close working relationship with Dillon Moran. This blogger would speculate that through Moran, Shimkus exerted considerable influence over city practices.

In fact, Moran was Shimkus’s recent appointment to the planning committee for the upcoming Belmont Stakes.

[Thank you to the people who expressed concern over Jane and my recently infrequent posts. Jane and I spent two fun weeks in London visiting friends and going to the theater and museums. There were lots of chores to catch up on upon our return.

The more serious source of the lack of blogs has been that the most toxic and incompetent Commissioners on the City Council are finally gone. The last four years were extremely demanding. The worst of the group that I call the White Walkers has now been defeated.

Their inappropriate, poorly considered actions and crude, toxic behavior happened so frequently that it was hard to keep up reporting on them. More seriously, I feared all the damage their incompetence would wreak on our poor city.

The new Commissioners of Finance and Accounts are trying to bring order to the mess left by their predecessors. I will be writing more on this in the future, but I expect to do less work because we finally have a competent Council that I have confidence in.]

The Missing Bill

Although now, thankfully, out of office, the ghost of former Saratoga Springs Accounts Commissioner Dillon Moran still haunts City Hall. Moran and the unfortunate OnCall pay debacle have recently resurfaced in connection with an unpaid bill Moran left behind.

Garnet River is a software company that provides technical support to the city’s information technology (IT) department.

Recently, Garnet River contacted the Department of Finance over an outstanding invoice. The city has owed Garnet Hill $3,600 since October, 2024. That is almost a year and a half ago.

Apparently, Dillon Moran engaged Garnet River to work with Moran’s New York City Law Firm to scrutinize the city’s server for something related to the On-Call scandal. We know very little about the details at this point. We have an invoice from 2024 and a time sheet from the lawyer indicating billing for conversations with Garnet River.

It is not surprising that, after the terrible media coverage of Moran hiring a $1,250.00-per-hour lawyer, he was uneasy about what the Council might do when asked to pay this bill. Bear in mind that the city was being asked to pay two ways. They would be paying the lawyer for his firm’s time while paying the software company for its time.

Apparently, Moran’s solution was to leave the bill from Garnet River resting in a drawer in his desk, never bringing it before the City Council for the approval necessary to pay it. One has to wonder what went on here. I feel a little sorry for Garnet River. Having dealt with Moran, I can only imagine the telephone conversations he must have put Garnet River through, explaining for a year why they weren’t being paid. Did Garnet River go to the Department of Finance then as they have now, and if so, what kind of response did they get, if any?

So now the city is faced with at least one obligation incurred by Moran to a vendor for which there was neither a contract nor City Council approval.

This only came to light because Garnet River, which often does work for the city, contacted the city’s Department of Finance. I am not being rhetorical when I ask what other bills are sitting in drawers?

The Video and Documents

Garnet River Invoice

Escerpt From Lawyer’s Billing

The city of Saratoga Springs Board of Ethics has ruled that former Saratoga Springs Public Works Commissioner Hank Kuczynski improperly directed a city employee to perform political work on his behalf while she was being paid by the city.

The decision came in response to a complaint I made to the Board in April of 2025. That was almost a full year ago. The complaint was addressed only after city planner Susan Barden, who chaired the board, resigned and a new chair, Sara Nucera, was appointed. Why the committee under Barden delayed action for so long is unknown, as the Ethics Board’s deliberations are carried out in executive session.

Readers will remember that in the fall of 2024,Kuczynski failed to submit the required paperwork on time to secure the Democratic line for the Commissioner of Public Works position on the ballot in a special election. He subsequently ran a write-in campaign. Kuczynski directed his administrative assistant to assist him in scrutinizing the ballots as they were counted at the Board of Elections in Ballston Spa for two days. His assistant submitted time cards for this period to the city for payment, and Kuczynski signed the cards authorizing her payment.

I am glad to have finally received a decision, and I appreciate the ethics board’s work in confirming my complaint. Using city resources for campaigning is clearly improper. I hope this will discourage such behavior in the future. Kuczynski clearly violated the trust of the people of our city.

Douments