Town votes to sue county over park audit

The Island Now

The Town of North Hempstead board voted Tuesday night to sue Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos for what board members called an illegal attempt to audit financial records of the New Hyde Park Park District.

The board’s vote came after the town received subpoenas for the financial records from the county earlier in the day. Town officials said they expected to file the lawsuit in Nassau County Supreme Court this week.

“The county has no authority to audit the town under the law,” said Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman.

Kaiman dismissed the county comptroller’s initiative as election-year politics.

“They say it’s not about politics. But it’s all about politics,” Kaiman said, adding that he is “satisfied that the financial records are reconciled” for the park district, a special district under town control which includes Clinton G. Martin Park in north New Hyde Park.

Kaiman said the subpoenas received Tuesday sought records not related to Clinton G. Martin Park.

Kaiman said the county charter gives the county the right to audit records of sanitation, water and garbage districts, but not park districts.

He said only the state has the right to audit the town’s financial records. Kaiman said he’s offered to let the state comptroller’s office conduct an audit and share those results with the county comptroller’s office. He said he’d also offered to provide the financial records to the county comptroller to enable him to offer an opinion on them. He said that offer was declined.

“There’s no limit to what we’re willing to show,” Kaiman said.

Maragos denied any political bias in seeking the audit. He said the audit is permitted under terms of the county charter. He said his predecessor, Democratic Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman, had conducted audits of several special districts.

He noted that his office had randomly selected the South Farmingdale Water District for an audit last year. And he said the county currently is contemplating audits of Town of Hempstead sanitation districts, but has no immediate plans to do so.

“It’s definitely not politically motivated,” Maragos said. “In this particular case, I think there is good cause for the county comptroller’s office to respond to complaints.”

Maragos said his office had received a number of complaints from town residents who raised questions about park district finances.

“There were complaints from residents alleging misappropriation of funds,” Maragos said.

Maragos declined to specify sources of the complaints.

But Lakeville Estates Civic Association President Marianna Wohlgemuth said members of New Hyde Park civic associations had complained to the county about irregularities they saw in the park district finances.

Kaiman said “misappropriations” was an “offensive, inappropriate word,” saying any issues on the accuracy of park district financial records are “ledger issues.”

“I have no problem with community gadflies raising questions,” Kaiman said. “But the sinister angle they take is not fair and not accurate.”

The audit sought by county is the latest phase in a battle between the town and the local civic associations over the town’s lease of a building in Clinton G. Martin Park from the park district. The civic associations have said the town owes the park district $20,000 or more – the annual lease is $15,000 – but the town has maintained over the past several months that it is current with its payments.

The two sides tussled over the issue last summer when the town sought to locate children from a day camp at the pool in Clinton G. Martin Park for swimming lessons. The civic associations immediately objected. The town said it had offered to pay the park district to locate the camp there – while the pool at Michael Tully Park was under repair – and the civic associations responded angrily with public complaints about the back rent they said the town already owed the park district.

Wohlgemuth said an audit was “long overdue.”

“There’s been questions brought about by the civic associations about the leased property and the leased payments,” Wohlgemuth said. “The town should be held accountable for the way they do their bookkeeping.”

Wohlegemuth said the parks department has been “sloppily and poorly managed” for the past several years.

“It’s been fiscally ill-managed, especially the special park district,” Wohlgemuth said.

Last fall Kaiman said the town paid $80,000 to build platform tennis courts at Clinton G. Martin in 2005 as payment in kind for some money the town owed the park district. Shortly after, Kaiman said he was mistaken. He said records indicated the park district had paid for the platform tennis courts.

In mid-November, Kaiman said an audit by town Comptroller Kathleen Mitteray showed the town had paid $89,000 for chlorine tanks installed for the park’s pool in 2009 to catch up with payments to the park district.

“I wouldn’t disagree that this could have been handled better,” Kaiman said.

Kaiman said the town has been revamping its accounting practices and putting in “best practices” with the intent “to make sure our records are more transparent and consistent with our goals.”

The town’s outside auditors, Albrecht, Viggiano, Zureck & Co. also reviewed the records, and the state Government Finance Offices Association conducted an analysis and made recommendations for auditing practices going forward, Kaiman said

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