I’ve been contacted by a number of people expressing their concern – anger – doubt – over the recent decision to select Tom DiNapoli to serve as New York State Comptroller. I understand the anger expressed…if I had only heard one side of the story – the vilification in the press and the insistence that one side is right and just, and the other side is corrupt, I might also believe what I’ve read. Fortunately, I believe people are fair enough and smart enough to learn the full story, and draw their final judgment with all appropriate input. For this has been the most one-sided issue presented during my brief tenure in the State Legislature.

Who has served as State Comptroller recently?

In most recent history, Alan Hevesi served as an Assemblyman for over 20 years before becoming NYC Comptroller, then State Comptroller; Carl McCall was an elected State Senator, appointed to a few key positions, including President of the NYC School Board, before being selected Comptroller by the Legislature in 1993 (and then being elected twice in 1994 and 1998); Ned Regan was a Buffalo City Councilman who became Erie County Executive. Nearly every prior State Comptroller – all the way back to Millard Fillmore – was an elected official as a preparatory step to election as Comptroller. This is also generally true with the post of NYC Comptroller.

What skills does the Comptroller need?

Without question, there is great value to possessing experience on Wall Street in investments, or managing a municipal finance office, both valuable skills to be Comptroller. But they are not the only skills. There is also great value in being experienced, over an extended period of time, with the composition, adoption and modifications of the annual State Budget. It is also a qualification to be well-versed on the local needs and impacts of town, village, small city and county governments. It is also a qualification to understand the policy implications of spending and taxation in each of the specific policy areas: education, crime/corrections, health care, the environment, transportation, housing, etc. to evaluate the soundness of budgets at every level. And it is a significant qualification to have interacted effectively and successfully with both Democrats and Republicans, in both houses of the Legislature, so as to have established a reputation for fairness, openness and inclusion. Finally, it is qualification – in light of the sad conclusion to the prior Comptroller’s term – to be ethical and recognized as such, without a hint of scandal.

How did the Screening Committee come to pass?

Governor Spitzer called for a new Comptroller who was outside of the state governments’ existing officials. He publicly urged the legislative leaders – Speaker Silver and Majority Leader Bruno – to agree to a screening committee that would winnow down the number of candidates from the 17 who applied. The committee was made up of 3 former Comptrollers: State Comptrollers Ned Regan and Carl McCall and NYC Comptroller Harrison Goldin. The leaders – and the legislators – sought to work with the Governor by agreeing to this arrangement. Implicit in the acceptance of the committee was a belief that the committee would function in a fair and unbiased way. Objections were raised in the Assembly conference that I was a member of, but in the interests of cooperation, those concerns were subordinated.

What was the screening process like?

Televised public hearings were held over two days to hear each of the 17 candidates present their credentials and beliefs, before a joint meeting of the Senate Finance Committee and the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. The three-man screening committee (Regan, McCall, Goldin) joined these members. The Senate and Assembly members asked a wide array of questions to the prospective applicants.

During the full proceedings, the three-man committee asked no questions of any candidate. They did not ask to hear anyone discuss their philosophy of investment; their experience with State budgeting; their understanding of the interaction between branches of government. No questions were asked by the screening committee members at all. After all candidates spoke, the screening committee met.

We all expected –including the media covering the proceedings – that the screening committee would recommend five (5) candidates out of the group. The news reports during that week all highlight that expectation and are on file for review.

The recommendations

Now, after the fact, there is a great debate as to whether the committee would recommend “5� candidates or “up to 5� candidates. Why is that a crucial distinction? When the screening committee came back with less than 5 candidates, they asserted these were the only qualified candidates, purposefully leaving out any sitting members of the Assembly and Senate (a total of 5 who applied), which was exactly what Governor Spitzer had called for publicly – that no sitting member of the legislature should be considered. Before the panel convened, Mr. Regan was quoted as minimizing the specific type of experience the successful candidates needed to have. Afterwards, however, was a different story. Regan commented that the legislators were eliminated because none of them had any experience managing more than a small legislative office. These quotes can be verified by Gannett reporter Jay Gallagher.

On its face, not considering any other factor of ability but by dint of being a legislator, five separate individuals with separate skills and talents were lumped together and disqualified by the screening committee.

On the basis of their criteria, Harrison Goldin himself, a State Senator when he ran for NYC Comptroller, would have been unqualified to hold that post. By those criteria, Carl McCall, whose experience with Citicorp (after a few terms as a State Senator) was not in the financial side of the bank, would not have qualified for selection. Ned Regan, who had governed a large county, had no Wall Street/investing experience, or direct management of a County fiscal department (in Erie County, there is a separate elected County Comptroller who manages the money side of the County government), would have also failed the test they set for consideration.

Despite those “lack of qualifications� each Comptroller served well in office.

More broadly, by the bias evidenced by the screening committee, Congressman Hugh Carey would have been unqualified to become Governor – although he performed brilliantly during the NYC Fiscal Crisis of the mid-1970s. Conversely, Abe Beame, a two-term City Comptroller, would be the “perfect� choice for Mayor during a fiscal disaster – but in that position it is commonly felt that he failed on fiscal affairs. Further – former Congressman Abraham Lincoln was not ready for the Presidency; neither was Senator John F. Kennedy, or former Vice President Richard Nixon. On the other hand, former Governor Jimmy Carter, as an executive previously, was well-qualified for the Presidency.

Results do not always follow “qualifications�.

The bias

My personal belief is that the three-man screening committee knew all along that they were never going to recommend any legislator, no matter what their talent or ability. In my judgment, at least 10 applicants were qualified for further consideration, including the City Comptrollers of Buffalo, and Syracuse.

The choice to by-pass the recommendations

If the special process, created to be cooperative with the Governor, functioned fairly, properly and in an unbiased fashion, the members of the Assembly and Senate were indeed honor-bound to accept it – even though it was not legally required to do so. What, however, should one do when I felt, and others, that the process had been jerry-rigged to force someone into the position. I know one of the recommended candidates, Bill Mulrow, and know him to be eminently qualified for this post. In fact, I supported him in 2002 for State Comptroller, before he lost to Hevesi in a statewide Democratic primary. I do not know Mr. Weitzman or Ms. Stark, but both appeared to be fully qualified. But in addition…Mr. SanFilippo – Mr. Brodsky – Mr. DiNapoli – Mr. Morelle – Mr. Ortiz – Mr. Connor – and others warranted individual evaluation and perhaps recommendation – but they were unfairly categorized as “unqualifiedâ€?. If we had the five recommended members promised, I would have had to accept the process…but less than 5 meant an effort was being made to steer me to a desired candidate. Would we have been equally duty-bound if only one candidate had been recommended?

What was done was an injustice, done for whatever purposes I cannot grasp. The public may clamor for someone outside the legislature, because the legislature is held in low esteem, but the individuals of the legislature must be treated as individuals. Their personal skills and credentials must be evaluated as personal skills. Mr. Morelle is an upstate businessman, with day-to-day financial experience; Mr. Brodsky has used his investigative authority to a level of effective result far in excess of the auditing function of the Comptroller. What of Mr. DiNapoli?

The skills of Tom DiNapoli

It is a gross miscarriage of justice to have tabloid newspapers assail Tom DiNapoli in the terms he has received recently. No one assailed the skills of Mr. Mulrow, Ms. Stark or Mr. Weitzman – only that they were not the only ones who could claim significant skills. Let us speak of Mr. DiNapoli:

For fifteen years, he has been directly involved in the oversight, amending, and adoption of the State budget as a prominent member of the Ways and Means Committee. He has directly been involved in the evaluation of revenue projections, spending estimates, department-by-department goals implicit in the legislative review process. He knows the state budget – a core auditing responsibility of the Comptroller – better than others who were deemed generically qualified. He was the lead negotiator on closing the budget on specific topic areas, such as the environment.

Mr. DiNapoli was the legislative sponsor of the legislation that bailed-out Nassau County during its fiscal crisis a few years ago. The plan has many authors – but Mr. DiNapoli is a prominent one, one who shepherded it through the maze of approvals in the Assembly, in a heated political environment. He was fully conversant in the intricacies of that plan, which is at the heart of understanding how to audit/evaluate county government finances

Mr. DiNapoli was directly involved in dealing with local governments and school districts on Long Island, and across the state, as a Committee Chair, on budgetary and legislative issues for localities. Auditing – and understanding – the structure of these local governments is also a qualification for the Comptroller’s post.

Mr. DiNapoli has prior experience as a private sector manager with AT&T, which evidences his ability to manage a team much larger than a legislative office staff. No one doubts that the skill to hire talented people, motivate the best performance from them, and lead them in a policy direction is the paramount responsibility of a CEO, or a political leader. These leadership skills dwarf all others – because there are many outstanding life-long financial professionals in the Comptroller’s office.

Mr. DiNapoli has been a strong supporter of Governor Spitzer; he was under consideration for appointment to the DEC Commissioner post (Google Newsday in December for that reference) after having been a possibility for Lt. Governor before Mr. Paterson was selected for that post. In the Assembly, Mr. DiNapoli has been a voice for reform, supporting the recent initiatives that (finally) delivered two on-time budgets, insured in-seat voting, opened up the scrutiny of the chamber to cable TV, and more.

I could continue, but I believe I’ve made enough of the point. In the tabloids, Mr. DiNapoli has been categorized as a “hack�, a soldier in a faceless army of Assembly Democrats. That categorization suits the purposes of those who wanted to destroy his candidacy. But it simply, plainly, is not true.

I believe that the next few years he will evidence his skill in the post, and over time, people will come to appreciate his stewardship of the pension fund, and his leadership of the professionals who conduct the audits and the reviews, and make the internal recommendations for pension fund investments. I expect he will criticize the Assembly and the Senate when he feels warranted to do so, and he will provide the honest check-and-balance on the executive branch that is implicit in this position.

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  Every word of this communication is my own; I have not used any type of aid from any source to assist in my writing. Roz Weinstein from my office has watched me compose this matter while sitting at the PC and typing each word myself.

  You have asked me for a justification of how we got to where we got. I do not ask for your blind approval, although I seek your support. I do ask for your thoughtful consideration; I encourage you to check out on-line every assertion and assumption I have made and determine, independently, whether you think I’ve been accurate. If I have made a misstatement of fact, or interpretation, please let me know.

  I continue to support Governor Spitzer and his efforts to improve Albany. We can disagree on any one issue and remain allies for progress. In my own 20 year record in Rye City government, and Westchester County government, I have a long record of advancing real reforms. That commitment continues every single day.

  I care very deeply that I do my best in office, and take positions that are for the public good. I make mistakes – but I try to understand them and correct them. Selecting Tom DiNapoli was no mistake – it was no knee-jerk, loyality vote, given to a leader. I voted this way, given a final choice between Mr. DiNapoli and Ms. Stark (who is an estimable candidate, and well-qualified) – because I think he brings the better skill set to this challenge: a proper bi-partisan attitude, and a low-key reasonability, plus all the experience I’ve mentioned.

  George Latimer