By Nicole Falco
"I decided to run for comptroller because, quite frankly, I don't think there's an independent watchdog in the comptroller's office," said Clavin, who is in his second term as the Town of Hempstead's receiver of taxes, in a recent interview at the Herald offices. "[Weitzman] won on the coattails of the county executive. How can he be an independent watchdog?"
According to Weitzman, he did his own fund-raising in 2001 and is doing the same for his current bid. "I funded my own campaign the first time I ran," Weitzman said. "It [bothered] Suozzi and the Democrats, but it gave me the ability to be independent. I'm [fund-raising for] my own campaign now. The fact is that I have not had the need to kowtow to any party line."
When Weitzman won in 2001, he became the first certified public accountant to hold the office. He said he made an effort to take the politics out of the office by hiring professionals - attorneys and CPAs - rather than simply following patronage practices. The county was on the brink of financial ruin, just months away from a state takeover, and in desperate need of recovery.
"I was elected to fix Nassau County, along with Tom Suozzi," Weitzman said. "There was no other reason for me to be elected and, quite frankly, I wouldn't have run for office. I was embarrassed like everybody else.
"[My office] focused its audits on those areas in the county that had the biggest dollars," he continued. "Something that had never really been done before. We went into some departments, areas like the police department, that had never really been done before, and came out and issued reports. We pointed out areas where there was waste and abuse, and areas where money could be saved."
While in office, the comptroller has released audits on the county's economic development, police, technology, social services, the correctional center and the sanitary districts. Last December, he released the findings of the audit of the Nassau County Correctional Center. According to the report, annual overtime costs doubled from $10 million to $20 million between 1999 and 2003, under the Gulotta and Suozzi administrations. Weitzman considers that audit one example of his independence from the administration.
According to Clavin, Weitzman should have known about the payroll abuses as they were happening, since his office administers the county's payroll. If elected, Clavin said, he would institute a computerized payroll alert system to detect excesses before they get out of control. "For $1,500, the county can install a computer program to detect overtime before it gets out of control," he said.
Weitzman said the county is already looking into plans to automate its human resources department. "The county does not have a modern time-reporting system," he said. "Everybody has to sign in and sign out."
Clavin also questioned the timing of the comptroller's sanitary district audits. The comptroller's office has already issued reports on District 1, which covers the Five Towns and parts of Valley Stream; the Syosset Sanitary District, and the Port Washington Garbage District, and plans on more audits of special districts, of which there are more than 100. In the case of Sanitary District 1, the audit found excessive and unexplained payments, including $700 for a steak dinner for four.
"[Weitzman] wasn't interested in special districts [like the sanitary districts] until [county assessor] Harvey Levinson brought it up and announced he was running against Kate [Murray] for town supervisor," Clavin said.
Since announcing his candidacy earlier this year, Clavin has called numerous press conferences, at which he has released his own "audits" of the comptroller's job performance. "If I can uncover these abuses as a candidate ..." Clavin said, alluding to what he says he'll be able to do in office.
In one instance, he said he discovered that the county could save as much as $200,000 if the comptroller turned off the lights at his Mineola office building during nonworking hours. Clavin also attacked Weitzman's discount prescription program. Weitzman, whose background includes 35 years in the health care industry as a CPA and owning a mail service pharmaceutical company, introduced the NassauRX card, which has become a national model, in July 2004. The free card, which is available to those who have inadequate or no health insurance coverage, has saved residents more than $3 million, and is honored at 90 percent of Nassau pharmacies and 54,000 drugstores nationwide. The average discount per prescription is 24 percent.
"The NassauRX program is a positive idea," Clavin said. "But he said there would be no cost to taxpayers, yet there are costs associated with it."
Clavin said that county employees were offered compensatory time in exchange for pitching the program at various fairs and carnivals, and some asked to "cash in" that time for wages equal to time and a half.
"We have no budget to market this," Weitzman said. "It's very frustrating when you have something that's good. We did ask some people in my office to go to fairs. Some took comp time for doing it, and one or two of them asked for that comp time to be converted to cash. ... Clavin would complain if we used the fax machine for this."
Looking ahead, both candidates consider taxes to be the No. 1 issue in the next four years. "Just holding the line isn't going to do it anymore with taxes," Clavin said. "People want to see some cost savings."
Weitzman said, "People are concerned about their taxes, and they're stressed about it. ... We are going to look at where people's tax money goes that I have the authority to look at: any district that is created at the county level or below."
Comments about this story? NFalco@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 208.
