ALBANY — New York’s former acting budget director was forced from her position on Monday and a high-ranking official in the state Office of Information Technology Services is taking a voluntary leave of absence amid an examination of whether government contracts they worked on had followed procurement guidelines.
State officials said Rajiv Rao, deputy chief information officer for technology and chief technology officer at the Office of Information Technology Services (ITS), is currently using accrued vacation time. He went on leave Tuesday, a day after acting Budget Director Sandra L. Beattie departed her position.
On Wednesday evening, after the Times Union asked Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office about any concerns regarding the work of Beattie or Rao, who had a close working relationship and partnered on major projects, a spokeswoman for Hochul said they had referred the matter to the state inspector general’s office.
“As she’s said from day one, Gov. Hochul is committed to restoring trust in government,” Hazel Crampton-Hays, a spokeswoman for Hochul, said in a statement. “When concerns were raised, we immediately referred them to the inspector general.”
Beattie’s tenure ended at a critical time during the final month of budget negotiations and less than a week after it was announced that Robert L. Megna, who had been the state budget director for governors David A. Paterson and Andrew M. Cuomo, would return to that role for Hochul, who announced Megna’s appointment last week.
The position of budget director is one of the most critical roles in the governor’s administration. That person oversees the state’s fiscal policies, executes annual state budgets — plans that now top $200 billion — and also manages New York’s debt portfolio.
Rao has not been accused of wrongdoing. In a recent post on Linkedin, a social networking site for business…
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