Jay Jaws Back at McGintee on Budget Deficit
 Morgan McGivern |
(3/20/2008) At a press conference in front of East Hampton Town Hall last Thursday, Jay Schneiderman, a former East Hampton Town supervisor who is now a county legislator, fought back against charges by Bill McGintee, the current Democratic supervisor, that the seeds of the town’s financial deficit were planted during his term.
“Supervisor McGintee has no one to blame but himself,” Mr. Schneiderman, a Republican, said, flanked by Len Bernard, who served as his town budget officer.
A group of about 20 — mostly reporters, Republican Committee members, and staffers — assembled alongside Montauk Highway to hear the former supervisor’s counterattack.
“Mr. McGintee inherited a very solid budget in a very solid town. And today there’s a deficit, and a looming, large tax increase,” he said.
“You can see they’ve dug a hole right here,” Mr. Schneiderman said. “I’m not talking about the foundation,” he said, referring to the building project in front of Town Hall, which he criticized. A new Town Hall is being created from historic buildings donated to the town.
“I was not about to let the current supervisor try to place the blame on me and Len for what has happened here through reckless spending and mismanagement,” Mr. Schneiderman said.
Contrary to Mr. McGintee’s assertions that he inherited an underfunded budget created by Mr. Schneiderman, which set in motion a difficult-to-reverse pattern in which surplus money was required to pay for operating costs, Mr. Schneiderman said he left the town in good financial shape, with a $9 million surplus in its general fund. “Today the surplus is gone, there’s a huge deficit, Moody’s has given the town a negative outlook, and the state comptroller has set up shop.”
“Under his management the town expenses have risen out of control,” Mr. Schneiderman asserted.
Anticipating the former supervisor’s remarks, Mr. McGintee countered last week by compiling a detailed accounting of increased spending in the town’s operating funds during his tenure and Mr. Schneiderman’s. The figures are comparable, he said, with spending in those funds increasing during his term in similar or smaller increments than it did during the years Mr. Schneiderman was supervisor.
Last Thursday, Mr. Schneiderman acknowledged that increased costs are unavoidable, but noted that there is a distinction between “discretionary and nondiscretionary spending.” Some choices Mr. McGintee has made, he said, include “raises given to select employees — mostly his office staff and himself, and even positions that were unpaid,” such as a $10,000 stipend to Councilman Pete Hammerle, the deputy supervisor.
Mr. Bernard, whom Mr. Schneiderman called “a genius,” as far as financial matters are concerned, took the podium armed with pages from town budgets to speak to the details.
Mr. McGintee and his budget officer, Ted Hults, “appropriated surplus he knew he didn’t have,” Mr. Bernard said, among other errors such as posting highway tax revenues to the general operating funds, “which gives you wrong information about what’s available to spend.”
Mr. Bernard said that the financial report sent to the state comptroller in April 2007 showed considerable deficits in the operating funds, “yet in 2007 — that election year — [Mr. McGintee] repeatedly said we were in fine shape financially.”
Also speaking at the press conference was Bill Wilkinson, introduced by Mr. Schneiderman as “the man who would be supervisor if Bill McGintee was honest about his spending.”
Standing next to John Behan, the leader of the Republican Committee, Mr. Wilkinson, who was defeated in his run for supervisor against Mr. McGintee last fall, said he would “be glad to jump back in” if nominated.
“There has been no correct information, there has been no transparency, no business acumen or business competency,” Mr. Wilkinson said of the McGintee administration.
“We are dealing with Client 10,” Mr. Behan said of Mr. McGintee. “He has been screwing the taxpayers of this town for five years, for more money than Eliot Spitzer spent.”
A team from the state comptroller’s office is reviewing East Hampton’s books, and this week determined that a full audit is needed.
“There is no question in my mind,” Mr. Schneiderman said, that they “will confirm everything we have been saying.”