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Giuliani's Tricky Tryst Accounting Explored
We here at TPMm have dived headlong into the murky world of New York City accounting procedures to bring you the full story of Rudy Giuliani's security detail's mistress visit accounting shell game.
A general clarification first. The central allegation behind the story was that Giuliani, or someone else looking to protect Giuliani, stuck the costs for the security detail into the budgets of obscure city agencies like the New York City Loft Board. It's not clear right now, though, how much total those trips to visit Giuliani's girlfriend Judith Nathan in the Hamptons cost (the Politico counts eleven trips), or which trips were hid in which agency. Not all of the Mayor's Office's travel was stuck with the backwater agencies -- much of it was billed to the mayor's office. It's not clear (to us, at least) if any of the trips to the Hamptons were billed that way, though.
The comptroller found that Giuliani's office hid $143,867 worth of "non-local travel" expenses in random city agencies in 2000; they upped the slippery accounting in 2001, charging $435,215 in 2001. Given the charges for the Hamptons travel noted in the Politico piece, only a fraction of this was for the eleven trips.
In other words, Giuliani's office had something like a widespread policy of misallocation of which the trysts were just a part -- something that they'd also done for certain salaries, according to today's New York Times:
The administration of Mr. Giuliani’s successor, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, said in 2002, several months after taking office, that the Giuliani administration had kept the budget for the mayor’s office artificially low by paying more than $5 million in salaries through other city agencies. The agencies to which Mr. Giuliani billed the travel expenses were outside the mayor’s office.
The Times adds that the NYPD typically picked up the bill for the mayor's security detail. But a Bloomberg aide tells the New York Daily News that it is common for the security detail to bill the mayor's office and then for the NYPD to reimburse it. However, "the aide could not confirm it was past practice to shuffle costs among an alphabet soup of agencies." There lies the rub.
Comments (18)
jon wrote on November 29, 2007 5:06 PM:more dirt, please. This looks like it could get juicy.
Jess wrote on November 29, 2007 5:21 PM:cab fare for everyone Guliani has screwed.
JW wrote on November 29, 2007 6:08 PM:Guliani's biggest mistake was made in not having a father who had been been both a CIA director and POTUS. After all, how many paper trails disappeared in the months and years before the Boy King announced his hat was in the ring?
Christopher Burgis wrote on November 29, 2007 6:42 PM:Mr. Lhotas explanation of the accounting is utter rubbish. If this was the case the entire time, standard practice so that Police were reimbursed more rapidly, then why did Bloomberg's controller flag these expenditures to begin with? Were expenses for Dinkins or Kotches security details the posted to any random agency willy nilly to expedite reimbursement? No, I don't think so. We live in a digital age, records don't get lost. Sometimes an expense line item can be miscoded, that happens, but this represents a clear long term pattern of deception and intentional malfeasance that has not been adequately addressed. If the accounts were re-billed at the end of the fiscal year as Lhota states, show us the ledger reversals otherwise don't pee down our backs and say its raining. Try another one Joe.
JNY wrote on November 29, 2007 6:55 PM:Former NY Comptroller Alan Hevesi (D) was done in mostly for using state employees and funds to drive his wife around. Can we expect that same for Rudy? I wonder when all the NY State Republicans will come down on him for this, especially Sen. Majority Leader Bruno who has endorsed him.
JohnJ wrote on November 29, 2007 6:57 PM:Faux news is trying to poh-poh this as normal practice as we speak.
"Nothing to see here. This is just the way it's done".
Sorry but I keep my dinner down and read the whole faux article.
Tiparillo wrote on November 29, 2007 7:05 PM:Giuliani Got Laid
alex wrote on November 29, 2007 7:10 PM:NYC Paid
hahahahahahahah . . . Giuliani is the biggest hypocrite I've heard. I heard this charlatan in the Republican debates spouting a monologue of half-truths. Cleaned up NYC singlehandedly? Not in the slightest. Roe v. Wade precipitated the decline of crime across the country, not just in New York. Criminalized homelessness? Sure, you can have that one. Started a war between bicyclists, pedestrians and children? Sure, you promoted disaccord between vital city organizations to cut sweetheart deals with so many corporate organizations, mostly at the expense of local arts and culture . . . shut down a tremendous part of NY's club scene . . . put cars through Central Park to "alleviate" city traffic. Thank god for intelligent and moderate Republicans like Mike Bloomberg -- financially independent and free to make political decisions independent of the requirements of corporate constituents. Kudos to Giuliani for calming the masses by promoting respect for other cultures in the post 9/11 cloud, but shame for poor management and lacking sensitivity and humility (humanity?) in so many other areas.
DallasNE wrote on November 29, 2007 7:36 PM:Having $5 million in pocket money could become awfully tempting. Like billing for services not rendered and a whole host of other abuses. Even gifts for a lover that are written up as services rendered.
Salaries for City employees, by the way, have taxes withheld for things like Social Security and income taxes and should be handled by their centralized payroll department. In fact, if they were attached to one department but on loan to another there would be no payroll change; only a general ledger entry to transfer expenses to the appropriate department. I doubt that any of this $5 million went for salaries of this nature.
No, this smells like a slush fund used in part for private purposes. Like hiding things from the wife you are cheating on.
Zyskandar A Jaimot wrote on November 29, 2007 8:03 PM:Ah RUDT has been 'charged' by the same unbiased groups who brought the ridiculous 'non-alligned' debate last night, How many DEMBHOLE 'SHILLS' can CNN place at a REPUBLICANT debate??? ANDERSON COOPER 'moderator' of this so-called REPUBLICAN debate [COOPER failed-actor/failed-personality/failed weatherman/failed-anchor/failed-tellall-author/soon-to-be-failed-homosexual] claimed he had no knowledge that 5 or 6 of the questioners were DEMBHOLE OPERATIVES!!! UNBELIEVABLE - the man who said he was GAY and a former general works for HILLARY and her GAY/LESBIAN task force!!! THIS DEBATE WAS A FARCE AND SHOWED THE DESPERATION OF THE DEMBHOLES AND the CommunistNewsNetwork - 'plants' as far as the questions were concerned and potted 'plants' in the audience including KERR and others flown to FLORIDA from CALIFORNIA by CNN!!! Watch out ANDRSON COOPER - another of your relatives[a VANDERBILT no less] is committing suicide by jumping from a building!!!DUCK!!! WHAT A YUTZ EVEN FOR A GAY GUY!!!At least when RUDT wears a dress - he looks horrible in it!!! Is everybody who works at CNN a FOOL - or just their 'news' staff???
Invigilator wrote on November 29, 2007 10:21 PM:I gather a "DEMBHOLE" is supposed to be a Democrat. But what is the slur intended? I don't get it.
Mary wrote on November 29, 2007 10:23 PM:My goodness.
Zyskander appears to need medication.
Do people like this really get to vote?
Marie wrote on November 30, 2007 2:08 AM:I hope the next Republican debate is on MSNBC. Chris Mathews is probley the only person who can get the truth out of these crooks. People keep saying the Repubs want strong leaders, but their candidates are all punks. They basically are going to do the same thing that boy bush has done for the last 7 years. It's scary and embarrassing how easily people are fooled. But than again it was the ignorant neocons who put boy bush in the white house.
The CNN debate was just another debate to see who could side step the questions the most. Most of the soft ball questions by the Repub Tube fans weren't even answered directly. Cooper had the once in a life time opportunity to probe Gulls about his passed transgressiions like scewing around on his wife and billing the New York tax payers for it. But what did Cooper do? He brought it up and that was it. He didn't follow through.
Now the Repubs want to whine about a possible Democrat slipping through to ask a question. Are we now a country that wants a president who is afraid to answer a question! This is getting rediculous. How did we allow these morons to run our country?
jon wrote on November 30, 2007 7:24 AM:Giulliani: tough on other people's crime, easy on his own shoe leather.
I suppose the real (rhetorical) question is: Can Giulliani be trusted to keep it in his pants? W wouldn't want to have another Clenis on our hands (sorry), would we?
But Giulliani's ego makes him want to outdo everyone in every regard. It could get ugly.
Zyskander, thanks for the laugh! Not really sure what is has to do with the subject. But I'm extremely glad your caps lock key and exclamation points are getting the workout they desperately need.
That said, Mary, every US citizen over the age of 18 (unless a convicted felon or otherwise debarred) has and deserves the right to vote. You may not like how the vote, or how they come to their decisions, but that is the beauty of democracy. The remedy to bad speech is more speech, and the remedy to infantile political opinions is greater voter turnout.
skip, wash dc wrote on November 30, 2007 8:03 AM:[COOPER failed-actor/failed-personality/failed weatherman/failed-anchor/failed-tellall-author/soon-to-be-failed-homosexual] - Zyskandar
WTF .... I think some monkeys final got control of a keyboard.
BobR wrote on November 30, 2007 8:21 AM:A question which will have a revealing answer: was this type of shuffle used for (many types of) other Guiliani travel?
I mean, he didn't *only* travel to the Hampton's to visit his bump-buddy, did he? He also went to Albany, I'm sure, and probably a few dozen other places. How were those police detail reimbursements handled?
If these shuffles only occurred when Rudy was visiting his FriendWithBenefits, and those Shagging trips were only 5% of all his trips, then this shuffling wasn't a normal procedure, and the suggestion by his aide that it was done to make sure the police detail got quickly reimbursed would be shown to be a lie, because 19 out of 20 times, they had used the non-fraudulent accounting procedure. It would mean, clearly, this shuffling the costs around for only those Hampton trips was meant to conceal the Hampton trips, and that required a widespread conspiracy in his organization.
EdgeWedger wrote on November 30, 2007 9:35 AM:With vigorous investigation and thorough reporting like this, there is much less urgency for the screenwriters strike to end. It would seem that Rudy's fawning appreciation for Bernie Kerik(ature) must have been, in large part, due to these nefarious arrangements provided by the NYPD, under Bernie's mis-management. Ghouliani's character warrants consigning him to a boot camp for adult delinquents. Yet, he's a "leading" candidate for president in a major political party? Would that be in Poland, Pakistan, or Russia? Couldn't be the USA!
Sabo Pike wrote on November 30, 2007 10:26 AM:While the policemen were getting rapid reimbursements, what about the disabled people, loft inspectors and people needing representation?
In economics, opportunity costs incurred when money is used for another purpose. What about the costs when money in departments wasn't used for the purpose it was allocated. Even if it was reimbursed, seems like if you were about to go court you wouldn't have wanted to have to wait while the mayor's security detail was being paid first.