Move would save over $1 million, improve management and functionality
(Long Island, NY) Former Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman announced a plan to combine the County Treasurer’s office with the County Comptroller’s office if elected. The plan would also include placing all county debt, grant, and cash management functions under the purview of the Comptroller’s office. The move, aimed at achieving cost savings for taxpayers and operational improvements to county government, would result in a structure similar to the New York State Comptroller’s office and the New York City Comptroller’s office. There is also a proposal pending to combine the Comptroller’s and Treasurer’s offices in Suffolk County. Unlike Suffolk, the Nassau Treasurer is an appointed position.
While the main thrust of this proposal is to streamline government operations, there are also significant cost savings involved. Suffolk has estimated savings of up to $1 million in their consolidation effort, and it is estimated this move in Nassau could result in similar savings. The Nassau County Comptroller’s Office currently has one elected official, 72 civil servants, and 13 appointees with total employee salaries of approximately $5 million. The Nassau County Treasurer’s Office has 30 civil servants and three appointees with total employee salaries of approximately $2 million. The average Nassau County employee receives compensation packages totaling $124,719. Taking a more conservative $100,000 per employee estimate, phasing out just 10 appointee positions across these offices and offices with duplicitous functions under the new management structure would result in $1 million saved without accounting for operational efficiencies achieved.
“With the county’s debt at an all-time high, this is a common sense way to save taxpayer money and enhance government efficiency,” said Weitzman.
From an operational standpoint, the move allows for offices with overlapping functions to work under one roof. Under the current bureaucratic arrangement, the Comptroller’s office approves payments and then the Treasurer’s office issues those checks. This move would bring both functions under the umbrella of the Comptroller. Additionally, the county’s debt, grant, and cash management functions are not currently under the purview of the Comptroller’s office and are managed across several departments. These functions could be brought in-house to the Comptroller’s office and managed in one location. By moving all of these functions under the Comptroller’s office, the management structure would be streamlined and work could be performed more efficiently.
In addition to cost savings and operational improvements, the move would enhance oversight and management of important county financial functions. A management letter issued in July of 2012 for the year 2011, the last such report publicly available, noted that the Treasurer’s office and offices of debt and grant management had ‘serious’ and ‘material’ internal control weaknesses and deficiencies. A ‘material weakness’ is defined as “a significant deficiency, or combination of significant deficiencies, that results in more than a remote likelihood that a material misstatement of the financial statements will not be prevented or detected by the entity’s internal control.”
“As the county’s chief financial watchdog, it is a failure of leadership for Mr. Maragos to sit idly by while material internal control weaknesses exist in county government,” said Weitzman. “By bringing these important financial functions under the purview of a qualified Comptroller, these problems can be avoided.”
About Howard Weitzman, CPA
In 2001, Howard Weitzman became the only CPA ever elected to the office of Nassau County Comptroller after a 30 year career as a healthcare financial executive. He was subsequently re-elected to a second term in 2005. During his eight years as Comptroller, Howard Weitzman played a central role in the financial rescue of Nassau County. Under Howard’s leadership, the office of Comptroller became a national model for transparency and accountability while at the same time developing a reputation for groundbreaking audits, independence and integrity. A graduate of Brooklyn Technical High School and Queens College, Howard is the former Mayor of Great Neck Estates, where he and his wife resided for 35 years and raised three children. He is currently a resident of North Hills.
