GOV’S DONOR DEAL $OAKED TAXPAYERS
Calif. paid 45% less for tests
California paid 45% less for the same COVID-19 tests that New York state bought from a company tied to $300,000 in campaign donations to Gov. Hochul — and watchdogs are calling for answers.
“The more we know the worse it looks,” John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, said while renewing his call for an investigation into the $637 million in state business paid to the New Jersey-based Digital Gadgets. “This is a big deal. There is a lot of money, and it looks really, really bad, and there is a dark cloud of pay-to-play hanging over this — and it’s not going to go away.”
The revelation that New York taxpayers got soaked on the tests is just the latest instance of alleged pay-to-play schemes involving the Democratic incumbent ahead of the Nov. 8 election.
Kaehny is hardly the only Albany watcher calling for state or federal officials to probe how Digital Gadgets was able to charge the state nearly twice as much for rapid tests as the Omicron variant swept across the state last year.
“New Yorkers are supposed to believe it’s pure coincidence Gov. Hochul bought COVID tests for $12.25 apiece from a major donor, when other companies offered tests at half that price?” Assembly Minority Leader William Barclay (R-Oswego) said. “This is negligence, incompetence or blatant corruption — maybe all three. Either way, it demands answers.”
State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesman for Attorney General Letitia James — who has made political hay out of past investigations into reported price gouging — declined to comment.
Cutting out the Hochulfriendly middleman might have saved the Empire State as much as $286 million out of the $637 million in total payments to the company for 52 million tests, according to the Times Union, which first reported the Golden State discount Friday.
Digital Gadgets founder Charlie Tebele and his family gave $70,000 to her campaign before landing the contract and $227,000 in total once a deal got inked, with Tebele — who has denied wrongdoing — hosting a fundraiser for the governor last April, according to the newspaper.
The company insists the high price New Yorkers paid for rapid tests was necessary given the circumstances when it began selling the Empire State tests three weeks before California bought the same tests from a supplier.
In a crisis
Digital Gadgets spokesman John Gallagher declined to say how much money the company made from the deal — some of which indirectly went into Hochul’s campaign war chest via subsequent donations tied to Tebele.
“The company made nowhere near $286 million in profit, and any implication to the contrary is misleading and willfully disregards the fact that Digital Gadgets paid more per unit for AccessBio tests than the state of California did because of the size and the date of the order, risked hundreds of millions of dollars in capital costs to fill an order of this size, incurred millions of dollars in costs to charter aircraft and cover overtime for employees over Christmas and New Year’s, and then also had to meet the state’s subsequent requirement for tests to have an extended expiration date — requiring the additional sourcing of materials,” Gallagher said.
A government spokeswoman for Hochul and her campaign did not respond to requests for comment Friday, while the state Department of Health reiterated claims that the seriousness of the Omicron wave and a lack of time accounted for the high price as Hochul pushed to keep schools open in early 2022.
The administration has yet to say why it did not pursue direct purchases from the manufacturer like California.
“Yes, New York was in a crisis, but so was the rest of the country, and other states and the federal government paid nowhere near what New York did for the same test,” said Kaehny, who wants the feds to investigate.
The revelation adds to growing evidence that the Hochul administration gave preferential treatment to campaign donors despite her calls to make state government more ethical after replacing disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
“Even though she promised an open and transparent administration, this apple didn’t fall far from the corrupt Cuomo tree,” state Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt (R-Niagara) told The Post.
A spokesman for state Inspector General Lucy Lang, whose office oversees probes into wrongdoing by state agencies, would not confirm or deny her office was eyeing the deal with Digital Gadgets.
Hochul has denied any wrongdoing in the scandal surrounding the test purchases alongside other alleged pay-to-play schemes involving Medicaid transportation contracts, $600 million in public money for a Buffalo Bills stadium and ongoing efforts to overhaul Penn Station.