Is Rebecca Sanin Correct for Huntington Town Supervisor’s Job?

“The nonprofit sector is not known for being a high wage sector” Rebecca Sanin Newsday August 2, 2021

Prior to Rebecca Sanin arriving at Health and Welfare Council of New York, the employee comments on the internet site indeed were superlative. At that time, the employees enjoyed their work; there was a feeling of teamwork, and management worked with the employees to assist clients. After Rebecca Sanin arrived, the only comment offered was the atmosphere was now awful, management talked down to the employees, with management often indicating where they went to college to highlight the inferiority of the employees. The absence of any favorable comments throughout the Sanin period is telling when contrasted to the superlative rankings provided her predecessor on the site.

Nevertheless, Rebecca Sanin was paid $180,000 in 2018, her first full year with the Health and Welfare Council of Long Island (2018 is the most recent year  the Attorney General Charities Bureau has posted mandated annual disclosure statements from this not for profit entity on the website). That salary was an immediate $40,000 raise from her predecessor’s 2017 salary.  A large chunk of that 2018 salary was provided by the government, which provided 2/3 of the not for profit’s income (government grants of $1,165,318.00, while other contributions totaled $690,642).  Charity Navigator, the rating entity for charities, indicates Health and Welfare Council of Long Island is not rated, as it has not completed the Charity Navigator survey, and only provided one year of emailed tax returns rather than the requested four years.

Whether or not she received any raises in 2019, 2020 and 2021, Rebecca Sanin, if elected, will still be making tens of thousands of dollars less as Huntington Town Supervisor than she does running this government funded not for profit. Why change?  Rebecca Sanin indicated in the YouTube video she “immersed myself in politics in a county race” and, thereafter, was appointed to a political county position. When she left that county position, the administration she was leaving was still in office in the county. A few years later, that administration is now term limited and facing its final year in office. The government spigot, funding her salary in the largely government funded not for profit, may soon run dry.

In the YouTube interview, Rebecca Sanin questioned why town facilities were not open to all comers. Ms. Sanin stated “Why should the town I live in determine my access? “ (YouTube interview “Meet Rebecca Sanin, President and CEO of the Health and Welfare Council of Long Island).  In Ms. Sanin’s view, Huntington’s borders and boundaries are not relevant. In Ms. Sanin’s view, town taxpayers should underwrite more intensive use of town sports fields, beaches, pools and senior facilities with consequential increased replacement and maintenance costs and creation of more dangerous conditions and civil liabilities. Ms. Sanin sees the town taxpayers’ detriment as fair, once one looks at it, as she puts it, “with an eye for equity.”  It serves “equity”, then, to provide these facilities at no cost to those living beyond the town borders that see fit to use the town facilities at their whim.

This 2 plus 2 equals 5 may well be the new math, but Ms. Sanin and its adherents appear oblivious to cost.