NEW ROCHELLE, NY (August 15, 2026) — On July 29, City Manager Wilfredo Melendez told Robert Cox the audit he’d requested would be provided “upon completion.” The audit had actually been finalized and filed a month earlier, on June 30.
Melendez also argued the report wasn’t a qualifying “external audit” because the City, not an outside party, had retained the auditor. Taken at face value, that reasoning would mean no external audit performed for any government agency in New York State could ever qualify as “external,” since an outside auditor is, by definition, retained by whoever hires it.
Applied consistently, Melendez’s own standard would arrogate to himself the authority to override the exception New York State Public Officers Law § 87(2)(g) creates for external audits, which exists specifically so that records like this one must be disclosed.
Read the full letter at Words in Edgewise.