THIS GUY'S WITH NYC'S $9 MILLION 'BORED' OF ELEX TEAM
Agency hires big-bucks chauffeurs to ferry workers (& doze)
City taxpayers are shelling out more than $9 million to have Board of Elections workers chauffeured around town in black cars — and some of the drivers are so bored, they’re openly snoozing on the job.
The cars are part of a fleet of 400 vehicles being rented throughout the five boroughs to cater to the whims of BOE members and workers during election season, drivers told The Post.
More than 25 of the costly cars-for-hire were parked outside the Downtown Brooklyn BOE building on Adams Street on one day last week. Another 20-plus vehicles were stationed at the board’s site at 78th Crescent and Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills, Queens.
Board members and staffers enjoyed the pricey perk as earlyvoting stations in city schools created chaos for students and left parents outraged.
At least two of the hired drivers were blissfully unaware of any controversy involving their BOE clients as they caught up on some z’s on the clock.
One of the black-car drivers parked outside the BOE’s
Queens headquarters Friday was spotted by The Post napping for 45 minutes behind the wheel before he was called on to do some actual work.
We caught another driver in Brooklyn sleeping for more than three hours while waiting for his BOE passenger.
That driver and many others spotted by The Post displayed an official BOE placard on their dashboard as they freely — but illegally — parked in bike and no-standing-anytime zones.
Some of the waiting drivers also watched TV on their phones, grabbed a snack and cleaned their hubcaps. Five of
them stood around watching one driver as he wiped his tire rims.
“It’s part and parcel with government waste and maybe even graft,” Stephanos Koullias, a 39year-old bike messenger, groused as he stood next to the BOE building in Brooklyn.
“We have trains, and we have buses, and we have a Citi Bike system,” he added. “They don’t need to be here.’’
The vehicles come courtesy of three contracts totaling $9.2 million over six years that were inked starting in 2017 by the 10-member panel overseeing the BOE, documents reviewed by The Post show.
The entire bill was footed by City Hall, which has little say over the management of the independent agency.
The BOE’s current budget totals $246 million — up from $171 million last year, a more than 44 percent increase, stemming mainly from the early-voting push. The agency has 517 full-time employees.
A driver stationed in Manhattan said the livery workers are getting paid $19 an hour to ferry the board members and staffers.
That chauffeur, Fredy Castro, 54, said they get a slide from cops when they park in normally off-limits zones.
“It is just for the day, and [the police] told us it was OK to park here,” he said.
A 54-year-old woman who helps organize the drivers in Manhattan and who wished to remain anonymous said BOE members “are trying to give good service to the city.”
“They want to make it easy for the workers to get there so that there are not problems and people can go vote,’’ she said.
She added that the chauffeured board members and staffers “have important papers, legal papers, things they can’t have on public transportation.”
BOE spokeswoman Valerie
Vazquez-Diaz, asked by The Post about details of the livery system, said, “My deepest apologies, but we are in the middle of an election and cannot provide the information at this time.”
The agency has taken heat for its handling of this year’s early voting, with critics saying it was haphazard and disruptive to students’ school time.
The BOE also was rapped by Gov. Cuomo in the spring for posting the personal information of more than 4.5 million voters on its Web site.