By Henry J. Stern
May 27, 2008

Every week seems to bring a fresh account of misconduct or abuse by public officials.  Monday was a holiday, so we start Tuesday.

This morning, the Daily News looks over the expense accounts of City Council members, which they spend out of the $277,336 they receive each year for staffing and other costs.  This sum is in addition to their $112,500 salaries, and an average $10,000 lulu (payment in lieu of expenses for four-fifths of the Council who head committees or subcommittees).  That adds up to about $400,000 per year, or $1,600,000 per member for one four-year term. It does not include central Council staff or OTPS (other then personal services) which brought the Council budget for FY 2008 to $54.6 million.

The story, by  Benjamin Lesser and Kathleen Lucadamo, is entitled POLS' BERSERK PERKS.  It appears on page 19, so it is not likely to be read by the multitudes who look at the first few pages, and then go to the gossip columns or the extensive sports coverage.   Look, that's what most people enjoy in the paper - who cares all that much about the tiresome shenanigans of  minor politicians.

DIGRESSION: I heard a related story many years ago which could very well be true, but of course I have no personal knowledge of it.  When James Wechsler was editor and Dorothy Schiff was the owner of the New York Post, there was a dispute over whose articles were more popular, Wechsler's editorials or the paper's regular columns.  At the time the Post had two magnificent columnists, Murray Kempton on public affairs and Jimmy Cannon on sports.  These men were great writers and if you can find any of their books in print or articles about them on the web,  you should read them.  After Kempton died in 1997,  we were going to name a small grove of trees in Riverside Park near his home in his honor, but never quite got around to it.

 

At any rate, Ms. Schiff was persuaded (which was not easy) to spend some of her money on a survey to find out the most popular column in the Post.  The study discovered that it was the daily horoscope that most people read.  That is understandable, the rest of the paper tells you what is happening in the present, or what took place in the past.. Only the horoscope will tell you the future.

 

The News article zeroes in on expenses by eleven councilmembers.  The worst is Sara Gonzales of Brooklyn, who "topped the charts with $41,923 in consulting fees, according to records obtained under the Freedom of Information Law" (which, in the business, is called FOIL). To politicians, FOIL is a four-letter word, because it mandates disclosure of items they would prefer to keep secret.

The News continues: "Half (of her consulting fees) went to her communications director  Michael Schweinsburg, and $11,000 went to Promotional Strategies, a Queens-based campaign consulting agency.  Gonzales defended her spending, noting 'I'm very careful.'" 

To pay one's campaign expenses with tax dollars is legal if you do it through the public financing boondoggle, in which tax money is sometimes spent to subsidize both runaway victories and hopeless races. However, to take your Council stipend and use it to pay "Promotional Strategies" sounds well over the line.  Even officials who claim to be "very careful" can make errors in judgment, which they sometimes foolishly blame on their staffs.  You know how hard it is to get decent help nowadays.

Some other expenses listed by the News require further investigation to determine their true value.  But for Maria Baez of the Bronx to spend $17,765 on cell phone bills looks to be somewhat over the top. Check to see if they were all local calls. Ms. Baez should be told that there are still such things as land lines.  Other purchases seem reasonable, such as $134.93 for a digital camera for Bill deBlasio of Brooklyn or his staff.

Dan Garodnick of Manhattan spent $32.58 for a thermometer, probably including sales tax.  We were interested in whose temperature would be taken, and how it would be done, or whether the mercury stick was bought to measure outdoor temperature. We learned from his office that it was used to measure indoor temperature when Garodnick received complaints from tenants about lack of heat. Clearly appropriate. BTW, Garodnick is a valuable Councilmember who worked hard to protect the residents of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village when the developments were sold by Metropolitan Life to Tishman Speyer.

We believe that some of the expenses described by the News are justified, while other larger items give cause for a high degree of suspicion (maybe between orange and red).  The Council needs its own Inspector General, appointed for a fixed term and not removable without good cause, in order to keep an eye on those members who are tempted to dip into funds which they could not remotely earn on their own.  And the city's DOI (Department of Investigation) should review Councilmembers' expenses, tedious as that may be.  Other city employees are subject to mayoral discipline, but, as elected officials, Councilmembers will be restrained only by fear of public exposure and the certainty of punishment beyond restitution, perhaps forfeiture of office..

Let it be clear: there are many honest, decent, hardworking Councilmembers, while others are lazy, uninterested but not disinterested in issues, and careless with public funds.  Strict oversight of all these expenditures is necessary to protect the Council from those who have stumbled onto a gravy train, and want to make the most of it while they sup. Thanks to term limits, they have only eight years to sock it away and take care of their kith and kin. They should not get a free pass on inappropriate expenditures just because our tax money has been allocated to individual members.

If there is a follow up to today's Daily News story, we will certainly keep you informed.  Out of experience, however, we advise you not to stand on one leg until further developments occur. It will also be interesting to see whether any Councilmembers who are not mentioned in the story have anything to say about their colleagues' idiosyncratic behavior. Many are quite prolix, so we might hear something.