The Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued a subpoena to Orange County following controversy over a contract for IT services that began at $65,000 to search for a dedicated IT Commissioner that resulted in over $800,000 to a company led by the brother-in-Law of Human Resources Commissioner Langdon Chapman. An IT Commissioner was not found until after the controversy became widely publicized in November of 2023. At the time County Executive Steve Neuhaus had already said "What on earth are we spending all that money for". He then formed a committee of county representatives to determine ways to tighten up the county's contract agreement process so that similar issues would be avoided in the future, and proceeded to appoint IT Commissioner Glenn R. Marchi, PhD in December.
Marchi was formerly Commissioner of Office of Central and Information Services for Dutchess County Government in Poughkeepsie, as well as an Army officer and adjunct professor. Other honors include the CIO 100 Award and Best of New York Award. Dr. Marchi has been recognized for the Top-25 Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers Award by Government Technology, County-Level Executive of the Year Award by StateScoop and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by State University of New York at Albany.
County Attorney, Rick Golden, has said there was nothing illegal about the contract being reissued with additional personnel search payments and that added payments to a contract for a business deal that remains incomplete is a common practice. Senator James Skoufis disagreed and claims that due to the amount of monies spent there clearly should have been an RFP (Request for Proposals) that would have resulted in competitive bidding. Further, the claim that there was no conflict of interest involved in the brother-in-law of Chapman (Human Resources Commissioner) getting the contract defies common sense. Chapman has said he was not directly involved in the hiring.
Senator James Skoufis held a news conference in late October about the issue at the entrance to the County Building and asked for investigation by the Orange County DA's office as well as the FBI.
Attorney Golden said the subpoena is "General" and was not issued to any
individual person.
Senator Skoufis on the FBI Subpoena Issued in the Corruption Probe said “In the face of the county government’s months-long deception and ‘nothing to see here’ attitude. following my office’s work to expose their corruption, I’ve repeatedly stated law enforcement would be the final arbiter on criminality. Make no mistake: This is the biggest scandal in Orange County government’s recent history."
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