Politics

Curran, facing NIFA cuts, makes $57.4 million in adjustments

New plan restores NICE Bus funding, provides for new property assessments

Posted

Last November, when the state board that controls Nassau County's finances made its own cuts to the budget for the first time in 17 years, incoming County Executive Laura Curran was faced with some significant rearranging of Nassau's finances to be done.

And on March 15, in a five-page letter to Nassau County Interim Finance Authority Chairman Adam Barsky, Curran outlined a new spending plan for the county that includes $54.7 million in cuts and new revenues.

The November order from NIFA to cut $18 million from the budget marked the first time that the agency — which was appointed by the state to oversee the county’s troubled finances in 2000, and has had veto power over the county’s budget since 2011 — stepped in with its own cuts.

Curran's new budget proposal is an effort to maintain funding for her administration's priorities while staying within the NIFA mandate.

“The county delivered a balanced budget with a realistic outlook for the future,” Curran said in a statement. “Instead of running around trying to plug holes, we identified reliable funding and then selected priorities for spending.”

Curran’s plan looks to save almost $8 million in salaries from vacancies across county departments, as well as $9 million in the police department by ending the Crimes Against Property program, eliminating a position in the commissioner’s office and shuffling other staff.

Her proposal also foresees $8 million in sales tax revenue growth.

With these and other savings, Curran said in the letter that she plans to bring back $7.1 million of previously cut NICE Bus funding and keep $1.4 million in youth services.

Curran also has voted to reassess all properties in the county by Jan. 1, 2019. Her new spending plan provides $1.2 million in additional funding for the Department of Assessment and Assessment Review Commission to re-staff for the project.

In her letter, Curran acknowledged that the county faces “extraordinary financial stress,” which she partially attributed to Nassau's “outdated, frozen tax roll and assessment system.”

The $125 million the county pays each year in debt service for property tax refunds, which the county is required by state law to cover entirely, is “strangling the budget,” Curran said. Her administration will need to bond further to cover 2017 payments, because former County Executive Ed Mangano's administration budgeted only $30 million for them, according to Curran.

“Resetting values is, however, only the first of the required reforms,” Curran said, adding that the assessment departments, as well as the county attorney’s office will need to staff-up to “maintain the integrity of the roll to ensure appropriate administrative review of grievances, and to defend against the legal challenges.”