KINGSTON – As Ulster County Comptroller March Gallagher continues her efforts to audit the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency, she now says Legislature Chairman David Donaldson’s involvement is setting “an alarming precedent putting the comptroller’s oversight of hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts at risk.”
Gallagher has subpoenaed documents related to the UCRRA’s composting operation and the agency has refused to provide them. Donaldson has since provided the comptroller with documents, which she said cannot be verified and are incomplete.
“We have $180 million in contractual services every year that the county contracts out with vendors that sign contracts exactly like this. We need to be able to audit those. The charter says that we have the authority in this office to do so and we are really trying to do our jobs and protect the taxpayer here,” she said.
Gallagher said the documents provided by Donaldson do “appear to confirm” one thing – “that a tremendous volume of compost product was sold to a related party, UCRRA employee and brother to the director of operations, William Whittaker.”
