No Criminal Charges For Long Beach Payouts: DA Singas

LONG BEACH, NY — Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas released the results of her office's investigation into Long Beach's retirement payouts today. And while her investigation found that they payouts were improper, they did not rise to the level of criminality.

Singas's office had been investigating the city and the retirement payouts for more than a year. The investigation stemmed from the 2018 revelation that the city had paid millions more than it should have in separation payments to some employees. Chief among them were former City Manager Jack Schnirman and former Corporation Counsel and Acting City Manager Robert Agostisi.

"Our exhaustive investigation found that these payments were the result of shocking ignorance of the Long Beach laws and ordinances, the incompetence and negligence of the officials charged with executing them, and a total abdication of oversight by the prior City Council," Singas said in a statement.

The most-publicized person to receive a payout was Schnirman. When he left the city to become Nassau County Comptroller, Schnirman was paid for all of his 878 accrued sick days, as well as 52.4 days of vacation time, when he was only entitled to be paid for 50. Audits found that $52,780 of Schnirman's payout — nearly half of his $108,022 total — was improper. Schirman has since returned the money in question.

Agostisi also received an improper payout, after the city said he cut a deal with Schnirman in order to keep him on as corporation counsel. The city also claims that Agostisi hid this deal when he became Acting City Manager and tried to stonewall the City Counsel when it asked for information. Agostisi was paid nearly $120,000.

The city is currently suing both Schnirman and Agostisi for more than $2 million.

According to Singas, her investigation found that most city employees didn't know about the city's Personnel Code, which sets limits for how much an employee can be paid when leaving their job. This includes the managers who are in charge of enforcing the Personnel Code, who instead just relied upon past practices.

Singas said that past City Councils were ignorant of the city's own laws, and "showed an inexplicable deference to un-elected appointees, even when they acted in open defiance of the Council."

Two audits conducted by the state Comptroller in the 1990s showed there were problems with the city's payout system, Singas said, but the City Council never acted on the findings. The current city council has taken action to give itself more oversight and strip some powers from the City Manager.

Singas said that during the investigation, her Public Corruption Bureau interviewed more than 30 current and former city employees and went over thousands of pages of records. She said the investigation was held up by some witnesses refusing to cooperate and questions of privilege relating to some records.

"Still, while we found the justifications offered for these payments to be incredible and inconsistent with the plain language of the applicable laws and contracts, we found no evidence suggesting the leave balances were unearned, nor did we find evidence of the criminal intent necessary to bring criminal charges," Singas said. "New York law erects an exceptionally high burden to criminally charge public officials with official misconduct, relegating 'misconduct [that] was the product of inadvertence, incompetence, blunder, neglect or dereliction of duty, or any other act, no matter how egregious (emphasis added)' to a non-criminal civil or disciplinary forum absent proof beyond reasonable doubt of knowing misconduct or intentional breach of duty."

Singas said that the City Council must establish clear policies for separation payments, and review other areas of its code to find if there are any other ways that employees are not following procedure. She also called on the city to make sure its Board of Ethics is active and ready to educate officials and employees about rules and conflicts of interest.

"During Mr. Schnirman’s tenure as City Manager, he allowed millions of dollars in improper payments to be made, personally accepted a payment much more generous than provided-for by the plain language of his contract and waited more than a year to return that payout while under state and federal investigation," said Singas. "The taxpayers of Long Beach deserved better."