Last Fall, top associates of Governor Cuomo were indicted for alleged corruption.\u00a0 In criminal complaints brought by former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, the Justice Department alleged that top ranking associates of the governor used their relationships to steer government contracts to the governor\u2019s campaign donors, as well as enriching themselves personally. \u00a0$800 million of contracts were affected.\u00a0 Much of the alleged illegal acts occurred in entities affiliated with the State University of New York.\u00a0 Nine individuals have been indicted for extortion and bribery, and one of those has pleaded guilty.<\/p>\n
Of course, everyone is entitled to the presumption of innocence and the allegations have to be proven in court.\u00a0 However, the allegations took place at roughly the same time as the governor was successfully pushing proposals to limit the power of the state Comptroller to monitor the state\u2019s procurement process.<\/p>\n
Under New York\u2019s constitution, a separately-elected Comptroller is charged with monitoring the state\u2019s finances and managing the pension fund of public employees.\u00a0 The rationale for making this a separately-elected official is to give him or her independence from the Administration.\u00a0 Thus, the constitution creates political \u201cdistance\u201d so that the Comptroller can audit the state\u2019s books without fear or favor.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t always work out that way.\u00a0 There has long been institutional tension between a governor and the Comptroller as the state\u2019s fiscal watchdog.<\/p>\n
When Governor Cuomo came to office during his first term in 2011 he successfully advanced legislation that cut back the powers of the Comptroller to do his job.\u00a0 At that time, the governor argued that the Comptroller\u2019s office moved too slowly and that the governor wanted to get economic development projects moving quickly in his efforts to jump start the state\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
The Comptroller offered evidence that the governor\u2019s claims were incorrect, but the Legislature approved the governor\u2019s proposals and in subsequent years, cut back the Comptroller\u2019s powers even more.<\/p>\n
Around that same time, the alleged schemes of the governor\u2019s associates were being cooked up.\u00a0 Would the Comptroller have been able to identify these corrupt actions?\u00a0 We\u2019ll never know, but the fact that an outside entity had the capacity to act might have short-circuited the efforts.<\/p>\n
When the indictments came down, the governor promised to advance legislation to reduce the risk of corruption in the state\u2019s system of awarding contracts.\u00a0 And in his budget, the governor proposed establishing new offices to monitor the contracting process \u2013 but those individuals would be appointed by the governor.\u00a0 Moreover, the governor did not propose restoring and strengthening the powers of the Comptroller, despite calls from reformers to do so.<\/p>\n
The governor\u2019s plan was rejected by the Legislature.<\/p>\n
This past week, Deputy Majority Leader John DeFrancisco moved legislation to the Senate floor that strengthens the Comptroller\u2019s powers to monitor state finances.\u00a0 Identical legislation has been introduced in the Assembly.<\/p>\n
The legislation empowers the Comptroller to approve State University of New York contracts above certain dollar thresholds before they are bid, including contracts of the SUNY Research Foundation. SUNY contracts in the areas of construction, construction-related services like engineering and architecture, materials, and printing will be newly subject to prior approval. Contracting by third party vehicles affiliated with public authorities will be banned altogether.<\/p>\n
The bill standardizes cost-effective and fair procurement practices, requiring public authorities, public corporations, and SUNY, to establish guidelines that mirror those of state agencies such as competitive bidding, awarding contracts to the lowest priced responsible bidder, and marketing practices that create the most competitive marketplace.<\/p>\n
Additional measures in the legislation establish greater integrity in state procurement transactions between vendors and government officials, employees and board members at state agencies and public authorities. \u00a0Both vendors and government representatives must follow a code of conduct prohibiting conflicts of interest or favoritism, requiring written recusals when conflicts do exist, reporting of any undue influence or fraud, and certifying a clean contracting process. \u00a0Failure to do so can result in hefty fines, termination of a corrupted contract, and penalties including up to a lifetime ban on vendors contracting with the state.<\/p>\n
Taken together, these many reforms will help to restore public confidence in the contracting process following recent scandals.\u00a0 It appears that the Senate is poised to act; the Assembly must follow suit and the governor should approve this important legislation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last Fall, top associates of Governor Cuomo were indicted for alleged corruption.\u00a0 In criminal complaints brought by former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, the Justice Department alleged that top ranking associates of the governor used their relationships to steer government contracts to the governor\u2019s campaign donors, as well as enriching themselves personally. \u00a0$800 million of contracts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1875"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1877,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1875\/revisions\/1877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}