State liquor exec accused of bilking taxpayers Director of Enforcement at liquor authority found receiving nearly $30,000 to pay for Syracuse-Albany job commuting
By JAMES M. ODATO, Capitol bureau Last updated: 1:34 p.m., Thursday, July 24, 2008
ALBANY - The head of enforcement for the State Liquor Authority may have violated state travel reimbursement rules, according to a new report.
That official, Daniel A. Malay, is also a double dipper of public compensation.
The Office of Inspector General said today Malay may have improperly obtained nearly $30,000 in travel money. He is also a retired Syracuse cop collecting a state pension of $29,953 annually. He received a "211 waiver" in 2006 sought by the Office of General Services on behalf of the SLA so that he could go to work as the leader of investigators probing alcohol licensing violations.
Malay, 55, was hired by his former boss at the Syracuse Police Department, Daniel Boyle. Boyle had served as the first deputy police chief in Syracuse. He later became commissioner of public safety in Schenectady. In February 2006, Gov. George Pataki tapped him as the SLA commissioner.
When Malay went to work for Boyle a few months later, however, he never moved from his Syracuse-area home in Jamesville despite having a job designated for Albany, according to State Comptroller records.
Nevertheless, he put in for and received more than $28,337 in travel reimbursement, despite driving a state-assigned car and working in Syracuse no more than a couple of days a week. His lodging reimbursement was for night-after-night of hotel bills at some of Albany's best hotels, particularly the Hampton Inn & Suites and the Marriott, according to comptroller records.
Malay and Boyle told the State Inspector General, which began looking into the matter a year ago, that Malay's official station was Syracuse. State officials say the Swan Street headquarters of the the SLA is the designated site for the investigations job however.
The IG said there is no record of the SLA setting up Syracuse for Malay's base and referred the matter to Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli on Monday.
An OSC spokeswoman did not have an immediate comment but furnished information that showed Albany to be the location of the director of enforcement's office. It also stated that the official station must be at a site that is in the "best interest of the state."
Malay, who receives $89,603 annually in his SLA post, according to comptroller records, could not be reached. An SLA spokeswoman did not immediately return a call.
"A state employee or agency cannot choose a work station for personal convenience or to boost travel reimbursements," Inspector General Joseph Fisch said. "That's the bottom line."
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Salvatore
July 24, 2008, 8:08pm
Guest User
at first I was thinking thi s was the Simbonese Liberation Army whcih my friends I am old enough to remember the hijinks. Look up Patricia Herst on the google here and you will remember S.L.A. too. Maybe this is just as bad
I just learned that once one retires from a county job at a nursing facility and goes to the private sector for a job, that person can not re-enter the county home(of ANY county) working for more than $25,000 year......does this and would this also apply to a retired officer(public worker) who then goes and works for the state???
No double dipping----I guess Mr.Bruno is 'locked in' tight......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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