New Hyde Park Mayor Christopher Devane said earlier this month the village has rescinded lifetime health benefits for former members of the board of trustees.

Devane said during the Thursday night board of trustees meeting that the village had been paying benefits to former trustees for decades.

Devane and the current board became aware of the situation when they saw that former Trustee Donna Squicciarino, who Devane did not refer to by name, was still being paid health insurance despite not being a current member of the board. Squicciarino, who was first appointed to the board on April 22, 2013, to fill the unexpired term of then-Mayor Robert Lofaro, did not seek re-election last year and had her last meeting in March 2023.

The mayor said after an inquiry he found out that in the ’80s and ’90s, board members got free lifetime health benefits for being a part-time elected official. That was later changed in 2016 when the village board at the time voted to make trustees who were elected before 2010 and had five years in the village’s retirement system eligible for lifetime medical benefits. Trustees who were elected to the board after 2010 had to have 10 years in the retirement system to receive the benefits, Devane said according to the resolution. 

“There are people on that board I respect, there are people on that board I consider friends,” said Devane, who was the village justice for 18 years starting in 2003. “But, ladies and gentlemen, if I was on that board I would have voted no. 

The mayor also added he is the only current board member taking insurance from the village and that he will stop once his time as an elected official in New Hyde Park is over.

Devane, who was elected in 2021, apologized that he did not notice this sooner, but said he was more involved in this year’s audit process because Squicciarino and the village’s previous treasurer were both previously in charge of it.

“I am not knocking anybody. That board had the absolute right to pass that resolution just as much as we have the absolute right to rescind the resolution,” Devane said.

Devane said from the time Squicciarino, who he did not refer to by name, left the board at the end of the year, the village paid out $21,450 toward her family plan that he said she was not entitled to because she did not qualify and that the village had requested it be paid back.

Devane said in 2023 the village paid out $127,000 for medical benefits of people not on the board, including former Trustee Richard Coppola and former Mayors Robert Lofaro, Lawrence Montreuil and Warren Tackenberg. 

The cost for those four benefits since they all left the board, Tackenberg in 2001, Lofaro in 2013 and Coppola and Montreuil in 2021, is nearly $900,000, Devane said. 

“When do we say timeout and cut this off?” Devane questioned. “There are things we need to buy. There are people with their hair on fire because we spent $3,500 for a boardroom table upstairs and we’re spending $127,000 a year for health insurance.”

“This is not picking on anyone,” Devane said. “If you are a part-time public official and you attain five years, I don’t have an explanation why you are entitled to lifetime benefits when full-time employees are not.”

The village audit will also be completed in the near future and the auditor will be speaking to the board on the village’s financial status on Thursday, Feb. 15.