Heat over ethics 'plan'
Voted-out LI supervisor’s gifts to pals
A Long Island town supervisor who touted an ethics-reform agenda while in office lost his reelection bid — and on the way out gave questionable raises and transfers to nearly 200 workers.
The personnel changes — along with sweeping amendments to the town’s union-labor contract — were made during Hempstead Town Supervisor Anthony Santino’s final board meeting, causing some council members to cry foul.
“It was an attempt to protect loyalists,” Councilwoman Erin King Sweeney said of her fellow Republican. “I viewed it as an 11th-hour power grab.”
The changes to the CSEA Local 880 contract make it impossible to fire union employees for budgetary reasons.
“This provision binds the town board’s hands,” Supervisor-elect Laura Gillen said. “If there’s an economic crisis, we’ll be left in a precarious situation.”
She promised to ”repair the damage that was done” when she takes office and accused the board of protecting friends. “This is an act of sabotage at the expense of the taxpayers,” Gillen, a Democrat, told The Post. “It’s very disturbing to see such petty action from an outgoing administration.”
The personnel measures doled out nearly $4 million in raises to town employees and transferred politically connected workers to other departments, preventing them from being fired when Gillen takes over in January.
Some of the employee transfers are from Santino’s administration, including his director of communications, Michael Deery, who will keep his $205,000 salary in a new position in the Office of the Receiver of Taxes
In July, Santino announced “sweeping” corruption-reform legislation, insisting he planned to hold elected officials to high ethical standards. “It is time for everyone in government to decide if they are going to put the people whom they serve before personal profits,” he said then.
But local lawmakers say he’s a hypocrite. “It was a fake ethics plan,” said King Sweeney.
GOP Councilman Bruce Blakeman accused Santino of orchestrating a backroom deal with the union. “His whole political infrastructure is left in place with union protection,” he said.
A rep for Santino claimed the amendment expands workers rights. “Those who are affected by the amendment bring many years of experience to the town,” spokesperson Susan Trenkle-Pokalsky said.
The union, which endorsed Santino, declined to comment.