Spin Cycle

As the countdown continues to whether and when Alan Hevesi will quit as state comptroller, the question arises: are his efforts to do business as usual in the meantime doing anyone any good?
Hevesi has been negotiating a deal with the Albany district attorney that is expected to result in him stepping down, perhaps as early as tomorrow, over his use of state employees to chauffeur his ailing wife. While the scandal has unfolded, he has continued releasing audits criticizing cities for not using conservative financial assumptions when putting together multiyear financial plans and scolding the state for allowing its debt burden to grow too fast.
Some of these audits raise serious points, but how seriously can anyone take Hevesi when he criticizes other people’s financial missteps? It brings up that old saying about people who live in glass houses.

Mark Toor