When former County Executive Steve Bellone was serving as a lame duck during his last term in office, his administration was busy doling out money from Suffolk’s share of the National Opioid Settlement to organizations they would go to work for after leaving the public payroll.
Bellone himself was hired by Northwell Health, the hospital behemoth that received millions from the settlement fund. His chief of staff, Ryan Attard, was part of the committee that decided where the county’s $57 million share would go. She went to work for a group that received $1.87 million, along with Bellone’s Chief Deputy Vanessa Baird Streeter and Department of Information Technology Chief Scott Mastellon, who also took jobs with companies that got county money.
“We’re going to get to the bottom of how and where this money was spent,” said Suffolk Comptroller John Kennedy in announcing a “performance audit” of the program. The comptroller said he was “disturbed” over the jobs taken by Bellone and his former staff and has asked the County Ethics Commission to also look into the situation.
In conducting the audit, Kennedy said he will review contracts executed by the opioid committee, along with the names of all of the recipients and executive orders from Bellone that pertain to the fund. He’s also looking for the names of those who participated in the process, their votes, and any minutes or records from the meetings. “We want to know how the opioid committee decided where these millions of dollars would be spent,” Kennedy said.
County Executive Edward Romaine expressed disgust over the committee’s funding decisions. “Islip and Brookhaven are the largest towns in Suffolk, and they have the most residents impacted by opioids. Yet they received nothing from the settlement,” Romaine said. The district attorney’s office received nothing; the medical examiner, nothing; the county’s health plan, nothing.” The county executive pledged to open the grant process to the public with hearings in both Riverhead and Hauppauge. “We’re going to reformulate the committee; we need accountability and transparency.”
Suffolk has distributed only about $2.3 million of the settlement money so far, with Attard’s new employer receiving the second largest share. "From here on, not a single payment will go out unless I see it first,” Kennedy stated. He said he will look out for payments for services not yet rendered and will review all contracts. “We’re going to find out what these agencies are doing with the money.”
Since the funds came through a settlement involving opioids, Romaine said he wants to make sure the money addresses problems caused by the drug. “We’re going to have open meetings where people can be heard.”
As part of a National Opioid Settlement with Teva, Allergan, CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, and other companies that manufactured and distributed the drugs, $26 billion was made available to state and local governments, with New York receiving $4.3 billion.