The FDNY’s diversity monitor has billed the city a stunning $23 million in fees and expenses in his seven years — and the charges have only gotten steeper.
Mark S. Cohen’s yearly tab has risen from $1.6 million in 2012 to $4.9 million in 2018, bringing his total so far to $22,923,840.36, records reviewed by The Post show.
Brooklyn federal judge Nicholas Garaufis appointed Cohen, a former white-collar prosecutor, after a 2007 lawsuit by the Vulcan Society of black firefighters and the US Justice Department charged the FDNY discriminated against minorities.
While Bloomberg’s top lawyer Michael Cardozo quickly griped that Cohen was charging more than $300,000 in each of his bi-monthly bills as “a great deal of wastefulness,” de Blasio’s top lawyer, Zachary Carter, never raised a stink — until now.
“In cooperation with the monitor, the fire department has made substantial progress in implementing court-ordered reforms that have led to the recruitment and retention of a historically diverse workforce,” said a Law Department spokesman.
Of nearly 8,600 FDNY firefighters, 25 percent are now minorities, including 87 women, spokesman Jim Long said.