The Nassau County Legislature’s Democratic minority introduced a bill Monday to close what they called a “loophole” in the county’s contracting process.
Democratic legislators want to require vendors to disclose contributions to political committees and clubs before the Legislature’s Rules Committee can approve their contracts, in addition to the already required disclosures of donations to candidates for county offices.
“All of this money has to be accounted for, especially when it filters back to elected officials,” Minority Leader Kevan Abrahams (D-Hempstead) said. “If we’re requiring the disclosure of elected officials in terms of money that vendors donate to them, why not go one step further and ensure that the clubs that donate to elected officials, that vendors disclose to them as well?”
The Legislature passed a law in December requiring companies who have been awarded contracts to list all donations to candidates and campaigns for county executive, county clerk, comptroller, district attorney or county legislator.
But Democrats said the law does not go far enough because it excludes political committees and local clubs, which spend hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting candidates.
They cited the $12 million storm cleanup contract for VIP Splash Waterways recovery group that Chief Deputy County Executive Rob Walker signed on the same day in August 2014 the firm gave to the Hicksville Republican Club, for which Walker is the executive director. Walker and that contract are reportedly the subject of a federal investigation.
The Democrats’ bill would also require firms to disclose political donations from their principals, affiliated companies and family members.
“People do not want to feel they have to dig to find out what’s going on,” Legislator Judy Jacobs (D-Woodbury) said. “It should be right out there in the open, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
In a statement, Presiding Officer Norma Gonsalves (R-East Meadow) said “no loophole exists,” and noted that all vendors’ political contributions are publicly available on the state Board of Elections website.
Nassau County Attorney Carnell Foskey said in a statement that political committees “have no role” in awarding contracts.
Purchasing officials do not see whether vendors have made political contributions, he said, and the disclosure form is only given to the winning bidder to fill out after the contract has been awarded.
“(T)he county attorney’s office has advised that it is unlawful for the county to base a contract award, in whole or in part, on whether a bidder made a political campaign contribution or not,” Foskey said in the statement.
Abrahams said Democratic legislators would not reject a contract automatically upon seeing donations to political committees, but the additional requirement would let them see an inappropriate pattern of donations if one existed.
“That would definitely give us some level of concern, if we start to see the same vendor being awarded contract after contract and, oh, by the way, they continue to make contributions to particular entities or to particular elected officials,” he said.
The proposal is the Democrats’ latest charge that Republican legislators and County Executive Edward Mangano have not done enough to insulate the county contracting process from corruption in the year since former Republican state Sen. Dean Skelos and his son, Adam, were indicted on federal corruption charges. Both were convicted in November and are appealing.
Mangano and the Legislature’s GOP majority have repeatedly defended the process as highly transparent and said the county has implemented every recommendation from an independent panel’s review last year.
In addition to requiring donations disclosures, the county created a lobbying registry last year and in March lowered the threshold for legislative review of contract awards from $25,000 to $1,000.
Last month, Mangano appointed former New York City health department contract officer Robert Cleary as the county’s first procurement compliance director, a new position the panel recommended to oversee contracts. He also hired Donna Myrill from the Queens district attorney’s office as a separate commissioner of investigations, a position Foskey previously held in a dual role.
Along with the Democratic caucus, Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas and the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, the state board with control over county finances, have called for an inspector general appointed by an independent panel to investigate potential corruption and misconduct.
Democrats will continue to block $275 million of capital projects — until the county creates an inspector general’s position even if the additional disclosure requirements are made law, Abrahams said Monday.
Gonsalves called their pledge “reckless” when they made it in March.
