State Comptroller Accuses County of Wasting Taxpayer Money
By: Vanessa Herring
Updated: October 12, 2012
State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli found the county unfairly favored Navitech, which is owned by Monroe County's former Chief Financial Officer.
As a result, the report says, taxpayers overpaid $39 million dollars. Included in that, nearly $13 million dollars overpaid for radios and equipment, and a $5.5 million dollar debt he says the county should not have taken on. The comptroller says $20 million dollars of the total cost of the contract can't be accounted for at all.
In a statement, DiNapoli said, "officials claim they were attempting to save money, instead, they saddled taxpayers with unnecessary costs for the next two decades."
The report comes as County Executive Maggie Brooks is in a heated battle with Representative Louise Slaugther for the 25th Congressional District.
County spokesman Justin Feasel defended Brooks record saying the county has produced balanced budgets and has saved taxpayers millions of dollars under her watch. In his statement Feasel says, "Mr. DiNapoli, who has failed to understand these savings, despite multiple explanations from field experts, feels otherwise." Feasel goes on to say, "the county will let the proven success of our public-private model speak for itself."
It's that record that one voter is counting on despite today's allegations, "to me, Maggie's done a lot of things where I plan on voting for her," says Jonathan Lougheed.
Congresswoman Louise Slaughter says the report shows her longstanding allegations about Brooks' record are true. In a statement Slaughter said, "When you rig a bid so a campaign contributor can score a contract worth hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, that's a scandal." Slaughter went on to say, "taxpayers can't afford Maggie Brooks' embarrassing record of corruption any longer." One voter agrees with her, "since Louise Slaughter has been binging these things more and more to light it kind of donned on me that this was all taking place under her watch and she bears some responsibility," said George Griffin.
However, one voter says the statements issued by both candidates on Friday are not going to effect his decision come November, "they need to say something that's going to make them look better than the other person," said Joe Sotelo, "I don't know that it's really any kind of truth to it and its hard to fact check those types of things sometimes."
