"Nassau taxpayers deserve a taxpayer watchdog, not a lapdog," Hempstead Town Receiver of Taxes Donald Clavin of Garden City said as he announced his candidacy for county comptroller March 2. "While newspapers and other governmental jurisdictions continue to uncover scandals that Nassau's comptroller should have detected, Comptroller Weitzman has failed to manage the most rudimentary duties under his control."

Clavin announced his intention to restore public trust in the Nassau comptroller's office as he stood in front of Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman's office in Mineola last week. The receiver of taxes handed out handcuffs as he discussed plans to "handcuff" what he described as the comptroller's wasteful spending and lackluster performance.

"I am holding this event here to underscore the complete failure of the county comptroller in addressing problems under his purview," Clavin said. "This past December, the comptroller proudly proclaimed that one of his audits disclosed that runaway spending at the county jail doubled from $10 million to $20 million in a four-year period. Unfortunately, he failed to mention that his office administers the payroll for all county employees."

The receiver of taxes said that the "simplest of computer programs" could have alerted the comptroller to the overtime problem at the jail before it spiraled out of control. "It's time to put the 'handcuffs' on this type of government waste," he said. "This kind of runaway spending, which Mr. Weitzman admits has been allowed to continue for years, must be stopped."

Evan Stavisky, political consultant and spokesperson for the Weitzman campaign, said, "Don Clavin's partisan, political attacks aren't surprising since he is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the discredited political machine that nearly drove Nassau County into bankruptcy. Howard Weitzman is the most independent comptroller in county history. He blew the whistle on fiscal and management problems at the county jail and other agencies. His audits and fiscal expertise have saved taxpayers millions."

Clavin disagrees, stating Weitzman's failure to monitor overtime costs at the county jail was not his first payroll faux pas. He alleges that between January and June of 2004, Weitzman made regular salary payments totaling approximately $10,000 to a county employee who was fired and hadn't performed one hour's work. "This is another illustration of the county's need to have a real taxpayer watchdog in the comptroller's office," the receiver of taxes added.

Clavin continued, stating that even NYS Comptroller Alan Hevesi uncovered county failings that Weitzman should have identified. "New York State's comptroller echoed the findings of the previous county comptroller in stating that a lack of computerized tracking and other deficiencies in the Nassau Worker's Compensation Bureau is costing too much," he said. "Why hasn't Nassau's comptroller pushed recommendations that were made over half a decade ago, particularly in light of the fact that it is common knowledge that the county's Worker's Compensation Bureau is in disarray and is fiscally hemorrhaging?"

Stavisky said, "Clavin doesn't understand the first thing about the fiscal responsibilities involved with being comptroller. Comptroller Weitzman is a respected CPA, his auditors revealed the management problems in the jail, which go back three years, and he's made a series of recommendations on how to correct these problems.

"The fact that Don Clavin's ... only claim to fame is being tax collector for the political machine in Hempstead just goes to demonstrate that he doesn't have the professional expertise or fundamental understanding of what a comptroller does. Comptroller Weitzman's professional staff revealed the problems and is working to save taxpayers money by correcting them. Don Clavin, quite frankly, for his entire life, has been part of the discredited political machine that created these problems."

If elected, Clavin said he intends to make the comptroller's office a "true advocate for taxpayers and a tool for reform." He plans to accomplish this by instituting a computerized payroll alert system to detect overtime excesses before they spiral out of control, requiring bidding on all contracts that lend themselves to competition and refusing to accept "pilot program" defenses as justification to forego bids.

Further, he vows to publicly release fiscal impact statements on all proposed labor contracts with municipal labor unions, assemble an aggressive audit agenda for contract agencies that do business with the county and renegotiate MTA train station maintenance fees based on reduced train service and cleaning schedules. "Such negotiations are provided under the state's public authorities law, although the comptroller has failed to act," Clavin noted.

Clavin would also like to update "performance audits" to provide policymakers with data needed to address departments and divisions that he says are not performing adequately. He wants to oversee privatization and computerization of the county's Worker's Compensation Bureau and ensure that fixed-asset auditing is performed professionally to detect loss of county valuables, such as items taken from the county's museum inventory.

Clavin has served as Hempstead Town's receiver of taxes since February 2001. He was elected in November of that year and was re-elected to the position in November 2003.

One of the accomplishments Clavin is most proud of is the creation of what he calls new "user-friendly" tax bills. Realizing the county's reassessment would result in taxpayer confusion, he said he began planning on Jan. 1, 2002 to put new procedures in place. He explained that tax bills were re-designed so taxpayers could see more clearly where each portion of their taxes were allocated, a phone bank was set up to answer calls and staff from other departments were trained to handle tax questions.

Prior to taking office, Clavin served as legal counsel to New York State Assemblyman James Darcy while practicing law in the private sector. He also served as a legislative aide to the late Senator Norman J. Levy. He gained experience in local government while working in the Office of the Nassau County Attorney as deputy county attorney. In that capacity, he was responsible for defending various agencies of government, ranging from the Department of General Services to the Nassau County Police Department.

"Without a true reformer in the comptroller's office, Nassau County lacks the proper system of 'checks and balances' that ensure our taxpayers are getting their money's worth out of their county government ... Nassau County residents can't afford four more years of Howard Weitzman," Clavin concluded.

Weitzman took the reigns as Nassau's 11th comptroller in January 2002. In his first two years, he issued major audits of the county's police, social services and parks departments, discovering the potential for tens of millions of dollars in savings. He established the county's first citizens' audit advisory committee and critiqued the performance of major county contractors, including the firm conducting the $40 million countywide property reassessment. Most recently, in the area of health care, Weitzman launched an initiative to provide prescription drug discounts to all Nassau residents, regardless of age and income.

Weitzman is a certified public accountant who had previously built and managed one of the largest health care accounting firms in the country, ultimately merging it with a "Big 8" accounting firm and running its health care practice. After leaving public accounting, he founded and ran a public pharmaceutical company and a private medical finance company.

A graduate of Brooklyn Technical High School and Queens College, Weitzman pursued management studies at Stanford University and Baruch College. He and his wife, Susan, a CPA and landscape designer, have resided in Nassau County for more than 30 years.