Albany – NY Governor Orders New Background Checks of His Staff

Albany – New York Gov. David Paterson is ordering background checks of executive chamber employees after it was discovered that his chief of staff, under fire for not paying nearly $300,000 in taxes, had no completed background check.

Paterson also released a letter dated Jan. 28, 2007, from Charles O’Byrne to the governor’s counsel noting the tax debt, which he has since paid with penalties and interest, and the diagnosed depression that O’Byrne said led to it. Paterson says O’Byrne first revealed the problems to him in 2004.

Paterson said 60 percent of executive chamber employees didn’t have completed background checks and some of the material employees submitted for the checks is lost. Paterson says he learned of the lack of checks on Wednesday.

He said the background checks aren’t security clearances, so the previous administration of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, which started the policy, wasn’t obligated by law to do them.

“The previous administration did commence these checks but we now know only a few of them have been completed and we are presently unable to locate much of the information submitted by employees in this office,” Paterson said in a prepared statement.

He said the process doesn’t inform the employee when the check is complete, so he doesn’t hold any workers responsible for not making sure the check was done.