(Long Island, NY) Former Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman voiced his concern that George Maragos has continued to stall on issuing the County’s 2012 year-end financial report and failed to meet a statutorily-mandated deadline.
“It is appalling that it is July and George Maragos still hasn’t released the year-end financial report for last year,” said Weitzman. “This report is one of the Comptroller’s chief responsibilities. Mr. Maragos is the first Comptroller to resort to hiring an outside firm at a price of $225,000 over three years to help his own staff finish this report, and yet he has still failed to file on time.”
Several weeks ago Maragos held a press conference at which he announced preliminary end of the year figures but did not release the required full report and supporting documentation. The numbers provided were misleading and failed to account for over $100 million in real estate tax refunds and included overly-generous projections for Superstorm Sandy reimbursements. Maragos has now failed to meet the statutorily required deadline of submitting the report by June 30th. for the second year in a row. Just three weeks ago, a spokesperson for Maragos insisted that he would not miss the June 30th deadline this year.
“If George Maragos is going to stand before the people of Nassau County and make a ridiculous claim about the state of the County’s finances, he should at least provide documentation to back it up,” said Weitzman. “To neglect this responsibility is to neglect the heart of his job as Comptroller. The Comptroller’s office is badly broken if a routine report cannot be issued on time.”
Maragos was widely criticized for his preliminary announcement, with Newsday weighing in on the situation in a June 12, 2013 editorial which included:
“The Wall Street rating service that downgraded $1.5 billion of Nassau County’s debt by a notch on Tuesday might have felt silly when County Comptroller George Maragos announced Wednesday that Nassau had amassed a $41-million surplus in 2012. More likely, though, the financial folks at Fitch Ratings, and Moody’s Investors Service, which downgraded Nassau debt in October, recognized that while the surplus is a fiction, the county’s financial woes are all too real.”
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.
