OPINION: Don't sideline the state comptroller
May 6-That a notion to undercut the state comptroller's authority remains in state budget talks is mystifying. Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed culling some $4 billion from the oversight of state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli in her 2027 budget, removing a variety of contracts from his office's review. The Legislature has cut that back to about $1 billion, but they are clearly happy to let some of their own pet projects skip the extra set of eyes. It's enough to make us wonder: Do the words "Buffalo Billion" mean anything to anyone at the state Capitol these days? It wasn't that long ago. As the Times Union's Dan Clark noted in the Capitol Confidential newsletter, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo removed the comptroller from certain contracts led by SUNY and CUNY and their affiliates in 2011 and 2012. Clark wrote that "the Buffalo Billion contract bid-rigging scandal resulted in the abuse of nearly a billion dollars in public funds." A billion dollars. With great sense, Ms. Hochul restored the oversight of Mr. DiNapoli's office in a bill she signed in 2022, saying, "This bill is an important step forward, and I believe the legislation is important in our efforts to ensure taxpayer dollars are spent well." What's changed? Ms. Hochul, in her budget proposal, would increase the threshold to $300,000 for state contracts that the comptroller reviews. Right now, that office reviews contracts that exceed $85,000 at the state Office of General Services and $50,000 for all other agencies. Mr. DiNapoli said in his report on the proposed budget that the change "would be significant: in 2025, there were nearly 6,000 contracts executed that were between $50,000 to $300,000, totaling nearly $1 billion." Ms. Hochul's proposal would also remove the authority of Mr. DiNapoli's office to review procurement transactions issued against centralized contracts from the state Office of General Services exceeding $200,000 - that's $2 billion in expenses that wouldn't be reviewed. According to the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog, the Senate and Assembly versions of the proposal would still exempt $1 billion from the comptroller's oversight. Where Ms. Hochul exempted a couple of dozen particular contracts - ranging from $250 million in water infrastructure projects to $21 million in rural health transformation efforts - the Legislature added several exemptions of their own, including $126 million in vocational rehabilitation training (that's from the Assembly) and $90 million in community-based programming (that's from the Senate), according to the CBC. We still ask: Why the change? It can't be timeliness. The CBC noted the comptroller's office says its reviews take an average of 7 days, with 90% of contracts reviewed within 15 days. That's just a couple of weeks within a monthslong to yearslong contract process. The CBC suggests that if expediency is the motivating factor here, the state government should focus on speeding up steps that really take time, like writing requests for proposals. Seems like a good idea to us. What's really at stake here: watching out for the taxpayers' dollars. Mr. DiNapoli has said, "Independent oversight and broader competition in the procurement process are not obstacles but are essential checks that ensure public funds are spent responsibly and fairly." We couldn't agree more.
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