De Blasio owes the city $475,000 for calling in the police during the presidential campaign

Former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio must repay the city nearly $320,000 and pay a $155,000 fine for taking his security agent on trips during his failed presidential campaign, the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board ordered Thursday .

The hefty fine and repayment — both the largest penalty and the largest amount the board said it has ever imposed — may be the most lasting impact yet from Mr. De Blasio’s doomed presidential candidate.

The former mayor’s campaign lasted just four months in 2019 and damaged his standing with city residents, who complained that their mayor was playing an ill-considered game for national relevance at the expense of addressing issues at home.

According to the Conflicts of Interest Board, the city spent $319,794.20 in travel-related expenses for members of Mr. De Blasio’s security department to accompany him or his wife, Chirlane McCray, on 31 campaign-related trips abroad. The costs include airfare, car rental, lodging, meals and other incidentals.

Shortly before Mr. de Blasio launched his campaign, the board said it had told Mr. de Blasio that the city could pay the salary and overtime for its security team, but that paying the officers’ travel expenses would be an “abuse of the resources of the city”. .”

But Mr. de Blasio did not follow the board’s guidelines, it said. His failure to do so was one of many issues raised in a 47-page report from the city’s Department of Investigations, which found that Mr. de Blasio misused public funds for both political and personal ends, including having a police van and officers help move his daughter to Gracie Mansion.

Jocelyn Strauber, the investigating commissioner, said in a statement that the Board of Conflicts of Interest’s order supported her department’s report and showed “that government officials — including the most senior — will be held accountable when they violate the rules.”

In addition to ordering Mr. de Blasio to reimburse costs incurred by the city, the board fined him $5,000 for each out-of-state trip. The former mayor’s presidential campaign reported that he had just $1,422.76 on hand at the last filing with the Federal Election Commission, in December 2020. A political action committee associated with Mr. de Blasio, Fairness PAC, last reported that he had more than $32,000 in debt and less than $3,000 on hand.

Mr. de Blasio, who ran New York City from 2014 to 2021, was plagued by ethical questions during his tenure. He was the subject of a number of investigations into whether his fundraising methods violated the city’s ethics law, a ban on soliciting contributions from people who had business for the city.

In April, the Federal Election Commission fined his presidential campaign for accepting improper contributions from two political action committees he and others had created.

Since leaving his post, Mr. de Blasio has made a short-lived run for an open house seat that ended after two months on the campaign trail. (His House campaign reported that he had about $156,000 in his coffers at the end of March, but it’s not clear if he would be able to use that money to pay for expenses related to his presidential run.)

Mr. de Blasio left politics behind and moved into academia, becoming a visiting professor at Harvard University and teaching at New York University.

He has recently become more outspoken about his tenure. In an unusually frank interview with New York Magazine published on Wednesday, Mr de Blasio opened up to criticism he received as mayor, including an infamous moment when he dropped a woodchuck in 2014. He also expressed some regret about seeking the presidency.

“It was a mistake,” he said. “I think my values ​​were the right ones, and I think I had something to offer, but it wasn’t right on several levels.”

Mr de Blasio did not respond to a message asking for comment. One of his attorneys, Andrew G. Celli Jr., said in a statement that Mr. de Blasio’s legal team had already filed a lawsuit to appeal the ruling and block the board’s order. He accused the board of breaking “decades of NYPD policy and precedent” and violating the Constitution.

“In the wake of the January 6 riot, the shootings of Congressmen Giffords and Scalise, and near-daily threats directed at local leaders across the country, the action of the COIB — which seeks to saddle elected officials with security costs that the city has behaved properly for decades – is dangerous, beyond the scope of their powers and illegal,’ Mr Celli said.