ALBANY – Gov. Kathy Hochul’s former state budget director was hit with a laughable $5,000 fine after she admitted she schmoozed with a connected lobbyist while his client’s firm raked in an $11 million COVID contract, according to newly released documents.
Ex-Deputy Budget Director Sandra Beattie, who started work under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was wined and dined by lobbyist Michael Balboni — whom she brought in as a “volunteer consultant” for the state’s COVID-19-era Excelsior Pass.
The pass, which functioned as a health passport for New Yorkers, was outsourced and ran multiple times over cost.
Balboni – who was just named President of Adelphi University in June – would eventually be brought on as a subcontractor by consulting giant Deloitte, making over $100,000 off the state’s contract while continuing his friendship with Beattie, despite a recusal agreement preventing him from lobbying the budget office.
Beattie and her significant other cozied up with Balboni and his wife for four days at their home in Florida, according to a settlement agreement between Beattie and the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government released Tuesday.
During their Sunshine State getaway, the budget chief was invited to speak at an event hosted by Balboni, a former state Senator.
Beattie admitted she broke state ethics laws, but will only have to pay a puny $5,000 fine, according to the settlement.
“Ms. Beattie positioned a registered lobbyist, with whom she had a personal friendship and from whom she received personal favors, in a position to benefit greatly from contract work for the Office of Information Technology Services and its vendors,” the commission’s Executive Director Sanford Berland wrote in a statement.
Balboni, who’s only referred to in the settlement as an anonymous lobbyist, has not been accused of wrongdoing.
But commission records show his firm Red Land Strategies was drawing at least $10,000 a month as lobbyist, raking in up to $300,000 as part of the arrangement, after initially being directly paid by the state as a subcontractor for Deloitte.
Beattie was caught signing an invoice to pay Balboni under the $11 million contract to set up the Excelsior Pass, a project that ran over four times over budget.
It was one of over a dozen contracts being shoveled to Deloitte at the time as the state was outsourcing hundreds of millions of dollars of operations contracts to the firm – such as answering unemployment insurance phone lines and other tasks during the pandemic.
Beattie was sacked by Hochul in March 2023 in the midst of state budget negotiations after she and former state IT department boss Rajiv Rao ended up on the radar of the New York Inspector General’s Office.
Rao, who also admitted to violating ethics laws in a settlement with the commission, was also featured as a speaker at Balboni’s lobbyist events and caught investigators attention when his agency awarded one of his clients a contract to buy T-Mobile phones shortly after one of the get togethers, the New York Times reported in 2023.
T-Mobile was a client of Balboni’s.
Rao also personally got Beattie a state-issued cellphone that did not include standard monitoring software to ensure records retention, the probe found. Beattie suspiciously wiped the phone clean before turning it in the day she was canned, according to the records.
The settlement also revealed that while Beattie was still first deputy budget firector in March 2021, Cuomo’s administration signed a non-disclosure agreement with Balboni “relating to the Registered Lobbyist’s involvement with the re-opening of a venue that was also a client of the Registered Lobbyist.”
Balboni represented the New York Nets at the time.
Hochul’s Press Secretary, Kara Cumoletti, said in a statement that the governor “has always been committed to restoring confidence in government.”
“That’s why when concerns were raised, the individual was terminated and the matter was immediately referred to the Inspector General,” the spokesperson said. “The Governor has been clear that her Administration has no tolerance for those who violate the public’s trust and all parties should be held accountable.”
Rich Azzopardi, a spokesperson for former Gov. Cuomo, declined to comment.
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