>Bond agency’s ex-chief often dined on taxpayers’ dime Had meals with prominent Democrats, consultants
Monday, December 27, 2010
BY JEFF PILLETS AND ELISE YOUNG
THE RECORD
STAFF WRITERS
Ed Hynes, the recently retired executive director of the Bergen County Improvement Authority, routinely used taxpayer funds to pay for meals with local politicians, Democratic fund-raisers, staffers and consultants who worked for the agency.
Officials with the publicly funded BCIA defended the spending as necessary for someone whose job is to serve essentially as a business executive. But The Record’s review of agency documents suggests taxpayers got scant return on their money.
Hynes, who declined to comment, was paid $150,000 when he retired in September. But he also received reimbursement for an average of $725 a month for expenses — including hotel room service and in-room movies when traveling and dinners at upscale restaurants with local politicians, judges, developers and Democratic fund-raisers. The documents reveal that, since the beginning of 2005, Hynes received a total of $46,388 in expense reimbursements; in many cases, there are no receipts to verify his spending.
Among the items reimbursed are: $450 for “glasses reimbursement,” $200 to install a computer router in his Upper Saddle River home, and $129 for a home subscription in his wife’s name to the Wall Street Journal. The records show more than $6,400 in cellphone charges.
By far, though, Hynes’ biggest expense was food: He spent $24,261 on meals that were reimbursed by the county over five-plus years.
Democratic Freeholder James Carroll’s name appears in the records 17 times, including seven times where he was Hynes’ only dining companion and the tab exceeded $100. He was with Hynes and two others at Morton’s steakhouse in February 2009 for a $565 dinner.
MORE: https://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen/112491794_Bond_agency_s_ex-chief_often_dined_on_taxpayers__dime_Had_meals_with_prominent_Democrats__consultants.html
