Nassau comptroller agrees to review North Hempstead's request to audit building department

North Hempstead Supervisor Jennifer DeSena has asked the Nassau County comptroller to perform a full field audit of the town’s building department, which she said has failed residents by not easing monthslong backlogs and is plagued by scandal. 

“When dealing with the building department, trying to get a permit for even the simplest of construction almost always results in a multimonth delay,” DeSena said Monday at a news conference outside the building department. “It’s time we stop paying lip service to the problem. Instead we must be willing to consider every possible way to fix the problem.”

DeSena, a Republican who campaigned in the 2021 election on reforming the building department, said in her first six months as supervisor her office reviewed the department’s operations and found “a deeply flawed” and “scandal-plagued” department. She did not elaborate on the findings.

On July 8, DeSena sent a letter to Nassau County Comptroller Elaine Phillips requesting the audit and said an “impartial reassessment” by an outside agency is needed in the town and believes it will bring meaningful change.

In a statement, Phillips’ office confirmed receipt of the letter. 

“The comptroller’s office has a process in place for the independent review of requests for audits and has commenced this process,” the statement said.

A timeline and the nature of the audit will be decided by the comptroller, DeSena said. 

John Niewender is the town’s building commissioner. The department has 52 employees and serves about  237,000 residents. The department’s 2022 budget is more than $4.5 million, and about 8,000 permits have been processed over the past year for “big-ticket items” such as construction, town officials said. 

The measure was met with bipartisan support from Democratic Councilmembers Mariann Dalimonte and Veronica Lurvey, who both said they welcome a review of the building department.

“I look forward to seeing the results of this audit, as there is always room for improvement, be it financial, with the help of the comptroller, or operationally based on the decisions we make as town board members,” Lurvey said.

She noted that in recent years the town board has hired extra staff, offered extended hours to employees and approved installing the Citizenserve software platform, which provides some building department services to residents.

Dalimonte echoed Lurvey’s sentiments and noted that the board recently approved a measure requiring a monthly report summarizing all business — including applications received and reviewed, average application review time, permits and certificates issued and inspection reports — from the building department.

“It’s important that any strategies or reforms are based on factual information and not simply reacting to anecdotes, accounts that may not necessarily tell the whole story,” Dalimonte said. 

In 2007, a 16-month investigation into allegations of corruption led to the arrest and convictions of several department employees, including the indictment of ex-commissioner David Wasserman. He pleaded guilty to several charges, including grand larceny, and was sentenced to a year in jail. Others pleaded guilty to charges such as accepting cash bribes for permits and scheme to defraud.

In May, a proposal to strip the board of its power to override the building commissioner’s decision on requests for expedited permit reviews was voted down by the board’s Democrats. A revised proposal is still being considered by the board and was continued at last week’s board meeting.