Audit: Nassau routinely skips background checks on management hires

Nassau County routinely fails to conduct required background checks on candidates for management positions, a new audit of nepotism and favoritism in county hiring shows.

The audit, conducted by outgoing Nassau County Comptroller Jack Schnirman, reviewed the hiring of a sample of 78 managers from 2004 through 2018.

The survey found the county did not request Civil Service background checks on 39 of the employees, or 50%.

Schnirman, a Democrat who leaves office Dec. 31, told Newsday the audit aimed to identify "weaknesses in our systems."

The way to "guarantee that there is no nepotism, is you start with the central question: What are the needs of the workforce, as opposed to the opposite, when you start with a person you want to hire because you have a sense of favoritism toward that person," Schnirman said.

Schnirman proposed the idea of a "nepotism audit" while running for comptroller in 2017 after reading a Newsday story detailing political connections of government employees in Nassau.

The story found that more than 100 current or former elected officeholders, high-level appointees and political club leaders were related to employees who worked in county, town and other municipal governments.

Asked by comptroller auditors for the county's policy on background checks, County Executive Laura Curran's human resources director produced a 2004 memo from the administration of then-Democratic County Executive Thomas Suozzi, along with a 2010 email from the administration of former Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano, a Republican.

The Suozzi-era memo said background checks should be required for "any individual who will be involved in a policy-making role, management capacity, or any position of seniority in the Administration."

The Mangano administration email, written by the deputy director of human resources, said Mangano had ordered background checks on all new hires except three -- a deputy county executive, a staff counsel and a secretary to the county executive.

The names of the three employees are redacted in the comptroller's audit.

"These exemptions give the appearance of a lack of equity or fairness and potential nepotism," the audit said.

"The obvious question is why were things not done in a uniform way," Schnirman told Newsday. "Why did somebody say that those people should not be subject to the regular background checks?"

According to Schnirman's audit, Mangano in 2017, his last year in office, moved more than 40 management employees into Civil Service positions that protected them from termination.

Auditors said the transfers "created the appearance of an unlevel playing field" compared with that for employees who " 'played by the rules' -- that is, individuals who applied for positions in an open competitive manner and satisfactorily completed the required probationary period."

Also, "nepotism was likely involved" when county officials hired a relative of a county vendor the audit described as a friend of Mangano's.

The relative was hired by the county Office of Management and Budget at a salary of $85,000 annually, and was "loaned" to various departments as needed, the audit said.

The audit does not name the employee.

Schnirman's audit also examined the practices of the Nassau County Civil Service Commission.

The agency approved "extended leaves of absence to certain exempt County and Town employees without justification, giving the appearance of favoritism/nepotism," according to the audit.

Auditors also said they found evidence that managers in larger county departments sometimes weren't aware of their employees' familial connections.

"A large Department’s HR Manager advised the auditors 'we often become aware employees are related only when we attend the retirement party,'" auditors wrote.

By Scott Eidler

scott.eidler@newsday.com@ScottEidler

Scott Eidler is a deputy editor for the towns department at Newsday. Scott has worked at Newsday since 2012 and previously covered municipal government and education.