Steve Rhoads

Call for contract watchdog is mostly about politics

Posted

The Herald ran an editorial in the March 31-April 6 issue about Nassau County’s contracting process, “Nassau needs an independent watchdog.” While it properly brought attention to this important issue, it is important for the public to have all of the facts.

The county’s contracting and procurement process has existed in its current form since 1999, operating under county executives and legislative majorities of both parties. What the editorial left out was the fact that problems with that process, and calls for reform, are not new.

In 2006, Citizens Action New York reported that then County Executive Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, awarded over $100 million in contracts to companies that had contributed nearly $200,000 to his campaign in just his first term, and that 77 percent of no-bid contracts he awarded were finalized within 90 days of a company’s contribution to his campaign.

It was reported in The New York Times that in 2003, $177 million in tax breaks and incentives were given to six companies that had made over $67,000 in donations to Democrats, including Suozzi. It was also reported that lawyers and consultants hired by a county agency through no-bid contracts had contributed another $85,000 to Democratic campaigns. In fact, under Suozzi, the Legislature wasn’t notified, much less consulted, when the administration entered into contracts for less than $25,000.

Republican legislators, then in the minority, called for reform, but those calls fell on deaf ears. Sadly, many of the same Democratic voices calling for reform today did nothing to address the problem when they had both the opportunity and the obligation. Today’s Republican majority was determined not to repeat their failures.

Nassau County now has more oversight and transparency in its contracting and procurement process than any other municipality in the state. The calls for duplicative reforms, and the Democrats’ attempt to withhold funding for needed repairs to roads, parks and county infrastructure in the process, are about politics, not transparency.

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