Mount Vernon Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard says she is embracing a new audit that the state comptroller is about to start at City Hall.

The comptroller's goal is to get a handle of Mount Vernon's books.

Mount Vernon City Comptroller Deborah Reynolds welcomes the financial review and insists it can't come soon enough because she and the new mayor aren't seeing eye to eye.

Reynolds believes that an audit will prove that she, and not the mayor, knows what's best for the city.

Patterson-Howard says there is money to fix the streets of Mount Vernon - a couple of million dollars in the form of a reimbursable state grant. But she says she can't access the funds or get any information about the city books because of Reynolds.

“We have no access to understand how the finances are being managed and operated, which cripples our ability to manage our departments and run the city's day-to-day business,” says Patterson-Howard.