Former County Executive Steve Bellone and members of his staff may have violated ethics laws by taking jobs with organizations they funneled taxpayer money to while in office. Suffolk officials requesting an ethics probe have also questioned how funds were distributed from the county’s $50 million share of the Opioid Settlement and how the money relates to the former Bellone officials.
County Comptroller John Kennedy, who has requested a Suffolk County Board of Ethics investigation, called possible conflicts over the new positions taken by Bellone and three members of his administration “disturbing.”
“I have done financial disclosure every year since 1987,” Kennedy said. “I have to affirm that I have not used my public position to develop private employment. We now have four highly placed former county employees, including a county executive, who are on private payrolls within 70 days of separation. I am requesting a county ethics board opinion and will work with the county executive’s office to revise the code to make it clear that this revolving door behavior is unacceptable.”
Answering a question that has swirled in political circles for months—what will Bellone do once he leaves public office?—the former county executive took a job with Northwell Health in Staten Island as an assistant vice president of operations. Northwell is the largest health system in the state, with 85,000 employees treating over two million New Yorkers every year. County officials said the healthcare giant received the lion’s share of the opioid settlement money, won from purveyors of the highly addictive narcotic, handed out by the Bellone administration.
Bellone’s former deputy, Vanessa Baird-Streeter, raised eyebrows when she took over as head of the Health & Welfare Council of Long Island, a Huntington Station non-profit that received $75,000 from the Bellone administration prior to him leaving office. Baird-Streeter’s predecessor at the council was Rebecca Sanin, now a member of the Suffolk Legislature.
Another former county employee, Scott Mastellon, went from chief of Bellone’s Department of Information Technology to SVAM, a Great Neck company that Suffolk previously contracted with for computer technology work. According to Kennedy, Bellone used emergency powers after the 2022 cyberattack that crippled county government for months to okay nearly $14 million in “unnecessary” spending without legislative approval, a matter he said he has referred to District Attorney Raymond Tierney for investigation.
News also broke last week that Bellone’s former chief of staff, Ryan Attard, was named vice president and chief operating officer of the Family & Children’s Association (FCA). Under Bellone, Attard chaired the county committee that funneled $1.87 million in opioid money to the Garden City non-profit.
“Most of the people who died from opioids in Suffolk came from Brookhaven,” noted County Executive Edward Romaine, the former town supervisor. “The second most came from Islip. How much did the two largest towns get from the opioid money? How about zero,” Romaine exclaimed. “How much did the district attorney’s office get? Zero. How much did the medical examiner get? Zero.”
According to Romaine, who said his office will conduct a full review of the opioid disbursements in conjunction with the county controller, no minutes of the meetings conducted by Attard’s committee were taken, and records pertaining to the expenditures may have been removed. District Attorney Tierney has offered former Bellone administration employees a one-month amnesty to return any records they may have or face possible prosecution (see related story in this week’s South Shore Press).
“New York State Public Officers Law specifically identifies eliminating the concept of a revolving door with individuals moving from public office to positions in the private sector that they interacted with as government officials,” Kennedy said, adding, “It is becoming apparent that all opioid funding now needs a thorough review.”
Kennedy quoted the county’s ethics law as well: "No public servant shall solicit, negotiate for, or accept employment with any firm which is involved in business dealings with the county while such public servant is directly concerned with or personally participating in those business dealings on behalf of the county."
In published reports, Bellone noted that Attard “was not required to file a recusal form when applying for the position with FCA, which posted in December, because she was not personally or directly dealing with FCA at that time.” He also said his position at Northwell “did not require submission of a recusal form because I was not personally or directly dealing with Northwell Health or personally involved in any of their business dealings as a county official at the time.”