Democrat William Ryan will take a $190,000-a-year job with the company that runs Westchester Medical Center, a move that needed an ethics waiver from the county Board of Legislators.
Ryan, of White Plains, will leave office in January after 16 years as a county legislator, a post which pays him a base salary of $49,200 a year. He did not seek re-election this year.
An ethics waiver was needed because a provision of the county ethics code says that county employees must wait at least a year after leaving Westchester before working for a company that has had a business relationship with the county.
Ryan is expected to work as a governmental liaison for Westchester County Health Care Corp., which runs the medical center. The center, which operates in Valhalla as a public benefit corporation, was under the direct control of the county until 1998.
Ryan, who served as county board chairman from 2004 to 2009, was credited for his role in the county”™s Financial Improvement Committee that helped the financially struggling medical center find solvency in 2004.
The Board of Legislators voted 9-1 to approve the waiver Monday at a special meeting that several board members didn”™t attend. The meeting had been called late Friday, a move which drew criticism from several legislators and members of the public for its quick turnaround.
Democrat Ken Jenkins, likely serving his last meeting as board chairman, said he believed that every legislator was called to attend.
“I thought we did not need a waiver for this particular request since the medical center is now a separate entity, but we still have a significant interest,” he said.
The sole dissenting vote came from Legislator Michael Kaplowitz, a Somers Democrat, who said he believed the vote should have been held until the new year when more legislators could have attended. Kaplowitz is a member of a coalition with Democrat Virginia Perez and the seven Republicans on the board. The coalition is expected to vote in Kaplowitz as the next county board chairman.
The two Republicans in attendance on Monday, Rye Brook”™s David Gelfarb and Yonkers”™ Bernice Spreckman, both voted in favor of the ethics waiver. Still, questions have been raised by some board members about the provision of the ethics code, Section 883.21(H), that has been waived several times in recent years. Coalition members have left the possibility to refine or change the provision and potentially some other aspects of the code in the 2014-2015 legislative session.
