You Paid For It: IG reports slam two state agencies
Five state workers racked-up thousands of dollars in improper travel expenses using taxpayer-funded vehicles, according to a pair of reports issued Wednesday by the Office of the New York State Inspector General (IG).
The State Liquor Authority (SLA) permitted three high-ranking employees, including its former chairman, to make lengthy round-trip commutes to work at a cost of $20,000 per year in gas alone, according to the report. A separate report found that an administrative assistant in the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) wrongfully commuted to work in a state vehicle at a yearly taxpayer expense of more than $1,600.
"Taxpayers shouldn't foot the bill for extensive commuting," Inspector General Joseph Fisch said in a statement. "Use of state vehicles must be in the best interest of the state and should never be regarded as a personal perk."
STATE LIQUOR AUTHORITY
Ignoring a memo from the governor's office and warnings from his own agency's general counsel, then-SLA Chairman Daniel Boyle failed to report his commuting mileage as taxable income, the report found. Boyle told the IG that he was "always working on the agency's behalf" and was never given "clear guidance" on vehicle use.
The report also slammed the SLA for improperly paying $29,000 to then-Director of Enforcement Daniel Malay for commuting between Albany and Onondaga Counties.
Malay's second-in-command, Assistant Director of Enforcement Peter Person, used a state vehicle to commute nearly 600 miles between his Essex County home and his Manhattan office on weekends, the report found. Person, whose travel logs were allegedly riddled with errors, also drove the vehicle to a relative's Long Island home on weekdays racking up another 56,000 miles in 2008, the report found.
An SLA investigator, whose name was not released, used a state car to commute between the Capital Region and New York City, the report found. The 41,000 miles cost taxpayers $5,500 in gas.
A woman who answered the telephone at the SLA's New York City office said that Boyle, Malay, and Person are no longer employed by the SLA. She directed CBS 6 to the authority's Albany office.
SLA spokesman Bill Crowley said, "The State Liquor Authority is reviewing the Inspector General's report and his recommendations. The SLA, under the new leadership of Chairman [Dennis] Rosen, has already begun making changes to its policies and procedures regarding the use of state vehicles to ensure all employees are in compliance with both agency policy and all applicable laws."
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION
A separate report from the IG found that Leslie Woolsey, an administrative assistant in the DEC's Long Island City workstation, violated agency policy by commuting 900 miles to and from work each month in a state vehicle.
Woolsey had been granted use of the vehicle following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 in order to work with law enforcement and fellow DEC staffers, but she kept the vehicle for personal use through 2006 even after her work schedule had returned to normal, the report found. The IG's statement said that her mileage reports were incomplete, and that she "failed to report the value of her perk on her W-2 form."
Her supervisors, then-Regional Operations Supervisor Gary St. Clair and his successor Robert McDonald, were aware of Woolsey's actions and permitted them to continue, the report found.
Woolsey did not return a CBS 6 phone call, but DEC spokeswoman Maureen Wren noted that the agency has already begun implementing policy changes to prevent a recurrence.
NEXT STEPS
The IG forwarded the reports to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance "for review of the unclaimed fringe benefits," according to the statement.
The DEC and SLA concurred with the IG's findings and agreed to tighten its policies and enforcement, it said.
