By Jason Scheer
In a press conference outside current Comptroller Howard Weitzman's office in Mineola on Wednesday, March 2, Clavin said, "The county needs a taxpayer watchdog, not a lapdog." He said that Weitzman has not been proactive in his approach to cleaning up the county, instead acting only after scandals are uncovered by outside sources.
"While newspapers and other governmental jurisdictions continue to uncover scandals that Nassau's comptroller should have detected, Weitzman has failed to manage the most rudimentary duties under his control," Clavin said.
He mentioned a May 2004 news article that revealed that two day-camp operators had received no-bid contracts to run programs at county parks. A no-bid contract is one for which no offers are solicited from companies looking to run government programs. In this case, the report found that one of the operators who received the contracts was a relative of the Nassau Democratic Committee's chairman. Weitzman is a Democrat.
Clavin also mentioned an incident in which Weitzman made regular salary payments totaling around $10,000 to a county employee who had been fired and hadn't actually performed any work.
Clavin also said that Weitzman's recent audit of the Nassau County Jail served only to highlight the comptroller's failures. "This past December, the comptroller proudly proclaimed that one of his audits disclosed runaway spending at the county jail doubling from $10 million to $20 million in a four-year period," Clavin said. "Unfortunately, he failed to mention that his office administers the payroll for all county employees."
Clavin offered different ways in which he would approach the comptroller's job. He said he would institute a computerized payroll "alert" system to detect overtime excesses before they are out of control. In addition, he would require bidding on all contracts that lend themselves to competition.
Weitzman fired back, in a statement issued by his spokesperson, Evan Stavisky. In it, Weitzman offered equally harsh criticism of Clavin. "Don Clavin's partisan, political attacks aren't surprising, since he is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the discredited political machine that nearly drove Nassau County into bankruptcy," the statement read. "Howard Weitzman is the most independent comptroller in county history. He blew the whistle on fiscal and management problems at the county jail and other agencies. His audits and fiscal expertise have saved taxpayers millions [of dollars]."
The election will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 8.
