Staff changes for key figures in IT contract controversy

GOSHEN – Employment changes are coming for two key figures in the Orange County IT contract controversy, Director of Operations Alicia D’Amico and Commissioner of General Services Samantha Sweikata. 

D’Amico will retire at the end of the month and Sweikata will be reassigned to a position working in the county’s economic development office, according to County Executive Steve Neuhaus.

The county executive, speaking to Mid-Hudson News via telephone while on military assignment in Spain on Tuesday, said the changes had nothing to do with the IT scandal in which the two women provided conflicting accounts of the vendor selection given to a special legislative committee.

“I think it’s just the fact of me making a command decision and readjusting how the county should be run, and I’m going to be making a number of other changes over the next couple of months as well,” he said.

Neuhaus said in addition to D’Amico’s retirement at the end of the month, Sweikata will be assigned to work under Economic Development Steve Gross.
She will be networking between business prospects and municipalities, he said.

  D’Amico and Sweikata were central in a recently released report by a special task force convened to investigate the county’s IT contracts.  The legislature empaneled the task force to investigate a contract with one of the county’s IT vendors, StarCIO.  The owner of the company, Isaac Sacolick, is the brother-in-law of County Human Resources Commissioner Langdon Chapman.  The contract drew sharp criticism from Democrats in the legislature and State Senator James Skoufis after the agreement, which was supposed to be for two months and $65,000 grew to more than $800,000 over a year-long period.

The task force found no criminality in the selection of the company; however, the legislature concluded that there was often sloppy or incomplete paperwork in the contract selection process and that the contract was improperly procured.  The…