Ex-OTB Chief Gets Job to Boost Pension

Less than 24 hours after resigning as the $149,000-a-year

president of Suffolk Off Track Betting Corp., Walter Conlon went on another

public payroll Friday, a move aimed at boosting his annual pension by at least

$10,000.

Conlon, 73, began work as a senior elections clerk at the Suffolk Board of

Elections for $49,000 a year after an early-afternoon vote by the Republican

and Democratic commissioners at the bipartisan county agency.

Anthony Apollaro, the Suffolk Republican chairman, said Conlon's hiring

would last only "days or weeks," long enough to allow him to qualify for newly

enacted pension legislation that Gov. George Pataki has yet to sign. Under that

measure, veterans would be allowed to buy up to three years' credit in the

pension system for their years in the military service.

"I think it is an issue of being humanitarian for all the time he spent in

the trenches as a loyal Republican," Apollaro said. "What he brings for the

short time he will be there more than compensates for what he's paid."

Republican officials say Conlon has 19 years and 10 months in the pension

system. Paul Sabatino, counsel to the Suffolk Legislature, said reaching 20

years would allow Conlon to retire with 40 percent of the average of his

highest three years' salaries instead of 32 percent. Based on Conlon's last

three years' pay, that would boost his annual pension roughly from $40,000 to

$50,000.

Apollaro said that if the pension bill becomes law, Conlon could get as

much as the three years' veterans credit by paying about $10,000. That would

raise his pension to nearly 46 percent of his highest salaries.

Conlon did not return calls for comment.

The hiring left some lawmakers speechless. "I'm shocked, I'm stunned, I

don't know what to say," said Paul Tonna (R-West Hills), the Suffolk

Legislature's presiding officer.

Though Conlon was placed into a vacancy in a $49,000-a-year position,

Apollaro said he plans to shift several board positions next week so the ex-OTB

boss makes the normal starting salary of $28,000 a year.

Conlon resigned from his OTB job late Thursday, a week after disclosures

that OTB revenues to the county plummeted a dramatic 20 percent in the first

quarter of the year. Critics blamed the drop on Conlon's free spending,

including expensive parties and the doling out of jobs and contracts to

relatives and cronies, such as a $100,000 security contract given to a private

security firm that employed his son. Conlon defended the spending and said the

estimated shortfall was overstated.