Nassau Inspector General's publishes no reports in a year

Nassau Inspector General Jodi Franzese has been on the job for more than a year now -- after Democratic county legislators refused for two years to approve contracts or most borrowing until Republicans who control the legislature agreed to hire an independent watchdog to oversee the county administration.
 
It took another year for the legislature to agree on hiring Franzese, who had worked for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s investigation department.

By then, Democrat Laura Curran had replaced Republican Ed Mangano as county executive and Democrats did not express the same urgency for an inspector general as they had while Mangano was in office. Mangano was convicted last year on federal corruption charges. He has appealed.

 Franzese started her four-year term on Jan. 3 of last year.

The legislature set up rules for the inspector general when they agreed to create the position.



The inspector general was to "prepare and publish reports and recommendations to the county executive and county legislature, based on the results of...(her) investigations, reviews, examinations and audits."

Take a look above at all the reports published on the inspector general's charter-required website. The public reports page is empty.

The charter also directs the inspector general to meet every six months with representatives from the legislative majority and minority to "review the previous six month's activities and the inspector general's plans and objectives" for the next six months. That means she should have had at least two meetings so far to discuss her investigations. She also must publish an annual report before March 31.

William Biamonte, chief of staff for the Democratic caucus, said in response to questions about the inspector general, said, "In accordance with the statute, we have met with the Inspector General several times since her hiring. The Inspector General has conducted herself professionally and demonstrated that she is serious about fulfilling the mission of the office."


Democrats did not respond to a Jan. 13 Freedom of Information request for any reports they had received from the inspector general.


Originally hired at $150,000 a year, the adopted 2020 budget gives Franzese a $15,000 increase to $165,000 annually. Her office is budgeted at a little over $1 million.

The only investigation that has been revealed -- sort of -- was when Franzese found that the lawyer for the county's board of ethics, Steve Leventhal, had not disclosed a court sanction. It is unclear if he was required to report that sanction, which did not affect his law license. Leventhal said then he was "fully ethical" in dealing with the county.

Franzese declined to comment at the time, but County Executive Laura Curran's spokeswoman Christine Geed said in July that because of the Inspector General's concerns, the county was soliciting proposals for a new eithics board counsel.

Leventhal continues to serve as the lawyer for the county ethics board.

The other time Franzese made news was when legislators criticized her participation in the selection process to hire Exiger LLC as an integrity monitor for construction of the new Nassau police academy. Curran pulled the half-million dollar contract for Exiger after legislators also questioned whether the Manhattan-technology research firm had received preferential treatment.

Francese did not respond to a request for comment.