Lawmakers get dispute over comptroller’s staff
Ulster County lawmakers could decide this month whether to return a confidential secretary position to the Comptroller’s Office, create a new administrative assistant position or leave staffing levels in the office as they are.
Ulster County Legislator David Donaldson, D-Kingston, has successfully executed a petition to force to the floor a resolution to restore funding for a confidential secretary to the county comptroller. In March, the measure was defeated in the Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee, but Donaldson was able to use a procedural move known as a “petition to discharge” to force the resolution out of committee and to the full Legislature.
Legislature Chairman Ken Ronk, meanwhile, has submitted a resolution to give Comptroller Elliott Auerbach an administrative assistant. His proposal will be considered by committees later this month. If passed in committee, that resolution would also go to the floor of the legislature this month.
Ronk, R-Wallkill, said the difference between the two positions is that the administrative assistant is a civil service position. The person filling that post would have to either be chosen from a civil service list, or, if appointed by Auerbach outside of the list, pass a civil service test for the position.
A confidential secretary would be appointed by and serve at the pleasure of the comptroller.
The position of confidential secretary in the Comptroller’s Office was eliminated in the 2017 budget, part of about $100,000 in cuts made to that office’s budget.
Auerbach sued the county and County Executive Michael Hein, who initially proposed the cuts to the Comptroller’s Office, to have the funding restored, but a judge dismissed the lawsuit.
Auerbach asked the Legislature again to restore the funding for 2018, but lawmakers rejected that request.
Auerbach has said he is the only elected official without a confidential secretary. Without the position, he said, others in the office, including the auditors, are forced to do clerical work in addition to their own duties.
Donaldson, who like Auerbach has called cuts to the office politically motivated and “vindictive,” has said the legislature is responsible for providing elected officials with the staff they need to run their offices properly. His resolution, he said, would provide Auerbach with the same confidential secretary position every other elected official has.
Ronk said his proposal, too, would give Auerbach the staff the comptroller says he needs, and alleviate the concerns of some legislators that Auerbach was using the position not as office staff but for politics.
“The comptroller came to the legislature and called (the confidential secretary) a ‘communications and constituent liaison,’ which I do not believe the comptroller needs,” said Ronk, adding that the administrative assistant “would not be going to Chamber of Commerce meetings, would not be going to naturalization ceremonies, would not represent the comptroller when giving out awards . ...
“This person would do the administration tasks (Auerbach) says right now other members of his staff do,” Ronk said.