Al Vasseur, a 24-year MTA bus driver from Lindenhurst, said he worries whether he will have a job under a Veolia takeover, which he said appears increasingly likely. He also worries whether he will have to take a pay cut if he keeps his job. He said Veolia required him to take an eight-hour course to review company policies, but Veolia has made no mention about possible salary levels if and when the company takes over in January.

Veolia already has a desk inside MTA Long Island Bus headquarters in Garden City and recently held a job fair for new drivers and managers, Vasseur said.

He added that he believes the MTA broke ties with the county because Mangano’s office was not “negotiating fairly.” The MTA, he said, had offered to have its county subsidy incrementally increased over a period of years, but Mangano flatly rejected the proposal.

Legislator Kevan Abrahams, a Democrat from Hempstead, said MTA Long Island Bus’ budget was $145 million annually, but the county has budgeted only $103.8 million for bus service next year, which leads him to believe that service cuts will be inevitable.

Legislator John Ciotti, a Republican from North Valley Stream, pledged that he would “not vote for a contract that eliminates routes or increases fares.”

Abrahams, however, noted that Veolia may not cut routes or increase fares in its first year of operations, but it has made no such pledge for year two.

“At the end of the day, this is your lives, this is how you get to work, how you put food on the table,” Abrahams said.

Mimi Pierre Johnson, of Elmont, representing New York Communities for Change, made an impassioned plea to the Republican legislative majority to set a date for a public hearing on Veolia. “I urge you, please, rethink what you are doing. Please give us a date,” she said.

Throughout the discussion, speakers reminded the Legislature that Mangano’s 2012 budget calls for the elimination of two police precincts as part of an effort to close a $310 million budget deficit, but the county executive has yet to specify which precincts will be cut.