Citing falling COVID-19 caseloads, Gov. Hochul is letting New York’s emergency pandemic contracting rules expire. It’s the right decision, albeit late. Finally back on the books now are rules requiring competitive bids for virus-related contracts and the submission of those deals to the state comptroller for review, both of which serve as vital safeguards against waste, fraud and abuse of tax dollars.
When COVID was raging, Hochul’s administration needed to be nimble to secure vaccines, test kits and more, but those days are long gone.
While Hochul says she’s been jumping through non-emergency hoops for a while, one particular deal under the emergency rules during the omicron surge remains ripe for scrutiny. At the end of 2021 and early this year, as the Albany Times-Union has reported, her administration’s Department of Health purchased 52 million home COVID tests for $637 million from a New Jersey-based electronic wholesaler called Digital Gadgets, paying an average of $12.25 per test, at a time when other companies charged less than $8. The company is run by Charlie Tebele, who maxed out as a $69,700 donor to Hochul, as did his wife Nancy. Another five family members gave, too, bringing the family’s total contributions to $300,000.
Hochul insists the donations had nothing to do with the purchases; spokespeople say the state reached out to multiple vendors and Digital Gadgets was the only one that could deliver the necessary numbers before schools reopened that month. That may be true, but ethics cops should dig deeper.
After the contracting rules revert to normal, next on the possible expiration docket is easing licensing rules to let out-of-state medical personnel practice in New York, while also letting EMTs administer COVID and flu vaccines. There’s a better case for keeping that in place as new batches of COVID vaccines roll out — but this, too, would be better dealt with through smart, deliberate strategies rather than ad hoc ones.
True emergencies demand the people in charge have special authorities, but it’s vital that checks and balances be restored as soon as humanly and bureaucratically possible.
