Kevan Abrahams, the county Legislature’s Democratic minority leader, echoed Suozzi, saying, “This budget once again relies heavily on borrowing and fails to address the long-term fiscal challenges our county faces. Mangano’s reliance on borrowing and unrealistic projections are what caused his last two budgets to end in deficits.”

Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos, a Republican who is up for re-election this year, has asserted that the county would finish 2013 with a $5.6 million surplus, but his office acknowledged that the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority would show that the county had a $120 million deficit using different accounting methods.

At press time, NIFA did not have a comment on Mangano’s budget proposal.

Though the 2014 budget reduces overall spending, it includes a 3.6 percent increase in employees’ salaries, a 7.9 percent increase in spending on contractual services and a 14.3 percent increase in interest payments on debt.

A Mangano spokeswoman said that the 2014 county budget did not introduce any new fees for county residents. The county anticipates a 9.4 percent increase this year in sales tax revenue, its largest source of funding, according to budget documents.

The Legislature must approve a 2014 budget by the end of October. A spokeswoman for Norma Gonsalves, the Legislature’s presiding officer, said Gonsalves’s office received a copy of the budget proposal last Thursday, and that it would review the spending plan and schedule hearings in the coming days. All 19 legislative seats are up for election in November.