Mailing Misdeeds of Gifford Miller Detailed in Audit
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

More than two years after the former City Council speaker, Gifford Miller, used his office’s dime to send out millions of glossy fliers that touted his accomplishments, an explosive report is saying that he flouted the city charter and a slew of other regulations.
A report issued yesterday by the city comptroller, William Thompson Jr., found that on Mr. Miller’s watch the council circumvented city printing rules, including its own, to avoid a competitive bidding process — a fact that was first reported by The New York Sun in 2005.
The fliers, which included colored pictures of Mr. Miller reading to school children in a classroom, were widely viewed as a misappropriation of government funds by the speaker during a year that he was running for mayor. The audit does not name Mr. Miller, but centers on the period that he was in office and the mass mailings that prominently featured him.
A message left for Mr. Miller at his office, Miller Strategies, was not immediately returned.
“Instead of awarding a printing contract through competition, the Council intentionally split printing orders or made several small purchases for individual members to prevent the total from reaching the $5,000 threshold for competition,” Mr. Thompson, who initiated the audit after inquiries from the Sun in 2005, said.
The audit, which reviewed expenditures between July 2004 and June 2005, found a “pattern of non-compliance.”
It says not only did the council skirt standard procurement practices by dividing up the printing jobs, but that it also hired companies that were affiliated with one another. Officials in the comptroller’s office found that $1.46 million of the $1.67 million in printing labor went to five vendors.
Auditors found a series of relationships between the printing companies: one of the companies, Jon Da Printing, is the parent company of another, JM Envelope; the president of Copy Photo Print was also the contact person for Metro Graphics N.Y.; and Metro Graphics and Copy Photo Print work out of the same Hudson Street office.
The City Council originally told that Sun that it sent out about 100,000 mailings at a cost of $37,000 to constituents. Documents obtained by a Freedom of Information Request later showed that 5.8 million campaign-style mailings had been sent at a price tag of $1.67 million.
The mailings were paid for by the council’s administrative budget and went out two weeks before candidates for public office were cut off from using their government office to send materials to their constituents — a practice designed to ensure that those who have government budgets don’t gain a spending advantage in an election.
Mr. Thompson’s audit said that with the exceptions of three printing jobs worth $35,470 all of the jobs were divided up, including some that were submitted to the same company on the same day. For example, the council made 46 different “purchase orders” with Jon Da for $203,550 on a single day in June 2005, rather than lumping them into one job.
For one job, the comptroller found that the council could have saved 42% of the cost, the audit found.
The audit did not just focused on printing. It found widespread violations in overall purchasing procedures at the council.
Mr. Thompson, who is planning a run for mayor in 2009, issued a series of recommendations urging the council to immediately discontinue the practice of splitting purchasing contracts into smaller jobs to avoid competitive bidding.
The current council speaker, Christine Quinn issued a statement today noting that the audit covered a period before she took office and said she began initiating reforms to purchasing practices shortly into her term.
She added that the council has “already begun to implement a majority of the recommendations” and is moving forward with the rest.
The council responded in the audit saying that it now bids out all printing jobs regardless of the cost, that it has expanded the pool of vendors it uses, and that it reviews the vendors every six months to make sure they are not affiliated.
“I believe that our ongoing efforts and the work we will do following this report will lead to increased efficiency in the use of taxpayer dollars,” Ms. Quinn said. “We will continue to work with the comptroller’s office to build the strongest and most effective internal management process possible.”
A spokesman for the comptroller, Jeff Simmons, said no evidence of criminality was found and that Mr. Thompson will follow up with the council on the recommendations he issued.