Ex-Suffolk official Baird-Streeter gets top job at council after it received $75G county contract

In the waning months of the Bellone administration, a top Suffolk County official initiated a $75,000 contract for a Huntington Station nonprofit that later named the official its chief executive, Newsday has learned.

Formal paperwork for the county’s contract with the Health & Welfare Council of Long Island was initially approved by the county's Department of Social Services on Dec. 21, 2023, according to a copy of the contract obtained by Newsday. At the time, Vanessa Baird-Streeter was still a deputy county executive.

Weeks later, on Jan. 4, the Health & Welfare Council announced it had selected Baird-Streeter as president and CEO from a list of more than 60 applicants. Baird-Streeter, 55, started in her new job on Feb. 5. Suffolk County mailed a “fully executed contract” to the council on Feb. 6.

Language in the contract earmarks more than $70,000 of the $75,000 contract award to salaries and benefits to the agency, including $10,000 for a “to-be-determined” chief executive whose total salary was listed as $200,000 when the contract was drawn up. 

Baird-Streeter, in an interview last week, noted she initiated discussions with the social services department about the need for the contract in July and August of 2023, months before the chief executive position became available.

She said her hiring and the contract were unrelated events, noting the administration of then-County Executive Steve Bellone included a line item for the $75,000 funding in its Oct. 11 recommended budget for 2024 — a month before the council's chief executive position became vacant after then-CEO Rebecca Sanin won the 16th District seat on the Suffolk County Legislature in November.

Baird-Streeter said her aim in initiating the contract was to address the lag by Suffolk County in processing SNAP-benefit applications, which is the council's primary mission.

Nevertheless, Baird-Streeter said she is considering removing the CEO pay component from the county contract with the Health & Welfare Council, and possibly even canceling the contract entirely, to avoid even the appearance of a conflict.

County Executive Ed Romaine, through a spokesman, said his office is reviewing the contract award, as is county Comptroller John M. Kennedy Jr.

“County Executive Romaine is fulfilling his promise of reviewing every county department and is working with his staff to determine how county dollars were spent under the Bellone administration,” spokesman Mike Martino said. 

Kennedy said the contract “has got 99 'whys?' written all over it.”

“I have concerns regarding the legitimacy or viability of the contract, and we are researching whether it was brought about under proper pretenses,” Kennedy said. 

In the new post, Baird-Streeter replaced Sanin, who previously was a former Suffolk County assistant deputy county executive, also in the Bellone administration, from 2013 to 2018. Sanin had total compensation at the Health & Welfare Council of $242,450 in 2022, according to the nonprofit’s tax filings. The agency’s total revenue for the year was $1.54 million, down from the prior year’s $1.9 million.

The contract requires that the Health & Welfare Council provide “education and outreach” on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to 500 Suffolk families each year, while assisting another 150 individuals or families with SNAP prescreening and application assistance. The work will target “all residents of Suffolk County,” including low-income families, though it notes the Health & Welfare Council “primarily serves those in the Town of Huntington.”

Asked about the $10,000 in the contract earmarked for the CEO post, Baird-Streeter said, “I didn’t know anything about that,” adding the posting for the position of CEO wasn’t made until November. “I had no idea what the [contract] submission would be” to the county, she said. 

Asked if the pay and her involvement in the contract could raise the appearance of a conflict of interest, she said, “I never really thought about the conflict, to be honest, because none of this was tied together.

“Prior to accepting or even considering this position, the contract and inclusion in the budget had to already have taken place,” Baird-Streeter added.

On further consideration, she said, “Highlighting this particular issue, then, I do think that a portion of the contract should not go to the salary and [I’m] maybe even considering not fulfilling the contract because I don’t want there to be a conflict of interest.”

The contract's bottom line, Baird-Streeter said, was to “ensure that we were addressing the most vulnerable individuals, making sure that they were getting access to the food and nutrition they need.”

Sanin, in an interview Friday, said resolving hunger issues was the primary focus of the 76-year-old organization. She said she was asked in the summer to put together a funding proposal for Suffolk, and did, “obviously well before I was even a candidate” for the legislature.

She noted that she did not sign the contract, played no part in its execution, and played no role in Baird-Streeter’s appointment as CEO. 

Sanin agreed that the contract proposal “went through the county’s budgeting process,” but she noted she left the Health & Welfare Council in mid-December. “I didn’t sign the contract. I wasn’t involved in the execution,” she said. “I don’t know where it stands. I don’t work for them anymore.”

As for the funding of staff positions from grants, Sanin said there’s “definitely nothing unusual about allocating part of the contract to executive management,” and “nothing weird about putting a piece in the budget allocating part to the CEO.”

The contract and the CEO hiring, she said, are unrelated. “There’s no link there. There’s no story there.”

The initials of the accountant in the social services department approving the contract first appeared on Dec. 21 and the process continued through Jan. 25, when it was signed by newly named chief deputy county executive Kevin Molloy. At least four other high-level county officials also signed it, including County Attorney Christopher Clayton and Department of Social Services Commissioner Frances Pierre.

The county contract, which goes from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, indicates the chief executive position for the agency had been labeled as “TBD,” or to be determined at the time it was initiated, with an anticipated salary of $200,000.

According to calculations in the contract, $10,000 of the county money for the position was earmarked for the CEO post, while $6,400 would help fund the chief operating officer position of Lori Andrade, and $15,750 would go to a “to-be-determined” new position for a community health worker dedicated to Suffolk County. In all, $54,483 from the county contract was earmarked to supplement six agency salaries the contract listed as a total of $555,134, with another $14,534 for benefits and $4,983 to office supplies, printing and rent.

Funds for the contract, which was to come from the social services department's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Outreach and Education, have yet to be transferred from the county as the contract is under review, Kennedy said.

A Newsday Freedom of Information Law request found the county had not had a contract with the Health & Welfare Council since 2010, when the county made four payments totaling $20,000. In prior years, the payments were far less, $200 in 2007 and $1,985 in 2009.

It's unclear if the contract underwent any competitive bidding process. The county code requires procurements for consultant and personal services of $25,000 or greater be subject to advertised competitive bidding, with bids reviewed by a committee making the award. There’s an exception for “client services,” but it requires the county agency requesting the contract to conduct a formal “request for qualification” process with “maximum notice to the public” in seeking potential vendors, to confirm the credentials and expertise of the vendors. 

Asked if the contract was put out for competitive bidding or a request for qualifications, Baird-Streeter said that by including the expenditure as a line item in the county budget, it would not need to undergo competitive bidding or seek approval as a resolution or procedural motion.

“This was in the operating budget,” she said. The budget passed the full legislature.

But Paul Sabatino, a Huntington Station attorney who formerly served as a former chief deputy Suffolk County executive and longtime former counsel to the county legislature, said the contract appears to require competitive bidding.

Sabatino said the contract could only avoid the competitive-bidding or request-for-qualifications process “if the agency fit into one of the statutory exceptions, and the Health & Welfare Council did not.”

The council’s “goal,” according to the contract, is to serve 10 families, individuals or seniors per week, while it will “strive” to raise public awareness and solicit support from various organizations. However, county records show the council assisted only five families since Jan. 1, Romaine spokesman Martino said. 

“Suffolk County DSS can confirm only five instances of the organization assisting a caller in need of assistance,” he said. “The county cannot confirm any information that was submitted to the state by HWCLI.”