April 11, 2008

Weitzman asks State Comptroller to refund $102,246 inappropriately charged to Nassau County for pension credit for local attorney

        Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman today asked that New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office repay Nassau County taxpayers $102,246 that was inappropriately charged in 2000 to pay for over 21 years’ worth of retroactive pension credit for a Valley Stream attorney who did not work for the county as an employee.

        “I want our money back,” said Weitzman. “The County taxpayers deserve to be made whole from this unfair claim on their pocketbooks.”

The private attorney, Albert D’Agostino, worked under contract as a County consultant for the Planning Commission, but in 2000 he had his status converted to “full time employee” so that he could receive over two decades worth of pension credit retroactively, costing the County $102,246. In the past week, dozens of other instances have come to light involving independent contractors employed by school districts, who were given “full-time employee” status in order to receive generous pension benefits to which they were not entitled to.

Comptroller Weitzman stated in a letter to Comptroller DiNapoli that the State Retirement System recently reaffirmed that independent contractors paid in a lump sum, which is reported to the IRS on Form 1099, should not be given pension credit for such work. 

The letter stated:

“Mr. D’Agostino relied on 21 years worth of 1099’s for proof of the County payments, and a letter from former Comptroller Parola evidencing that the County had four years of contracts with Mr. D’Agostino in the years predating County electronic record keeping.  These submissions should not have been accepted by the Retirement System as evidence of employment.

        In addition, Mr. D’Agostino relied on a letter from his department head, who claimed that the County had intended to hire him for 21 years but failed to do so because of bureaucratic inertia, and a similar letter from the former administrative head of the department who had retired ten years earlier.”

        The claim that a government made a ‘mistake’ that lasted over 21 years is untenable.

        “It is a completely unfair imposition on County and State taxpayers to require that they fund a pension based on an apparently false and bizarre claim that the County intended to do something that in fact it did not do for over 21 years,” Weitzman said.