Hempstead Town Board to vote on hiring its own financial consultant

The Hempstead Town Board is to vote Tuesday on hiring a former town comptroller to serve next year as a financial consultant for the town council members.

The resolution proposes hiring John A. Mastromarino, a certified public accountant with an office in Valley Stream, paying him up to $50,000 annually.

Mastromarino served as Hempstead Town comptroller from 1994 to 2010. Earlier this fall, he helped the Republican-controlled town board craft a 2019 budget proposal, which split from the spending plan Hempstead Supervisor Laura Gillen had already proposed.

The board passed its own proposed budget in a 6-1 vote over the objections of Gillen.

Gillen on Sunday criticized the plan to hire Mastromarino.

“This resolution is just another example of wasteful spending and party patronage from the Republican board who already employs the highest paid financial comptroller on Long Island,” she said through a spokesman in a statement.

Republican majority leader Erin King Sweeney defended the plan.

“John Mastromarino has a proven track record of protecting the taxpayers” of Hempstead, the councilwoman said in a statement issued by a spokeswoman. King Sweeney noted Mastromarino’s work on the town board’s budget proposal, which included a tax cut.

The board also is to vote on awarding a $1.63 million contract to Richard W. Grim, Inc., of Remsenburg  to reconstruct a section of Prospect Avenue in East Meadow, and a $140,000 contract to Unitech Services Group of Bay Shore to remove mold and asbestos from a town laboratory in Point Lookout.

The meeting takes place at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Hempstead Town Hall, 1 Washington St. in Hempstead.