Municipal officials have made wildly different reimbursements for private use of city cars in recent months, from thousands doled out by the city comptroller and council speaker to just $93.70 by the public advocate, a Post review has found.
Eight months after state Comptroller Alan Hevesi fell from grace for misusing a state car and treating its driver as his wife’s personal assistant, the city still has murky rules about how much officials must repay.
Mayor Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn asked the city Conflicts of Interest Board in November for clear guidelines, but none has emerged beyond rules allowing officials to use their discretion, leaving each bigwig to effectively set his own policy. Board officials declined comment.
“It’s long overdue for the city or [conflicts board] to make [the policy] clear,” said Gene Russianoff, of the New York Public Interest Research Group. “I was surprised at how much ambiguity there is now.”
City Comptroller William Thompson paid $2,488 from his campaign coffers for private use of a car between Jan. 1 and March 31, his office said.
Thompson, who has a police detail assigned to him, makes reimbursements of 48.5 cents per mile, and pays tolls and costs related to his civilian driver.
Quinn, whose police detail includes her driver, hasn’t reimbursed the city yet this year, but is expected to do so in a few weeks. She paid $2,784 from her campaign account for political use of the car last year.
Aides said she doesn’t pay for personal use of the car because it’s part of the security detail.
Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum wrote a check for only $93.70 from her personal bank account in April to cover the first three months of the year.
The Post reported last year that Gotbaum scrambled to reimburse about $3,400 for private use of her car – including for Hamptons and Connecticut getaways – in the midst of the Hevesi scandal.
Despite having the same security package as Thompson, Gotbaum’s civilian driver is part of her police detail, so she is not obligated to reimburse the city for using him on nonbusiness trips, her aides insist.
Gotbaum spokesman John Collins said her policy is “clear and common sense.”