Alfonse D'Amato

Post-election, let’s shift our focus to local issues

Posted

I too am thankful that the presidential election has come and gone. As the dust settles, there has never been a better time for our local leaders to get down to business and start making the tough decisions that the residents of Nassau County are entitled to.

The county is facing many problems, the most serious being massive debt and a $100 million budget deficit. The books aren’t balanced, and unless corrective measures are taken immediately, we’re heading toward disaster.

The buck stops here. Real change takes real leadership and bipartisan policies. It’s time to put politics aside and put the taxpayers of this county first.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, right? Looking back, Nassau County never should have agreed in 2014 to lift the wage freeze that had been instituted by the Nassau Interim Finance Authority in 2011. If you recall, the freeze remained in effect for three years, despite much political infighting and a lengthy court battle. It was ended by NIFA and the County Legislature in 2014, and now the county once again is in a downward spiral. If we had adhered to the freezes, we wouldn’t be facing a stifling $100 million budget deficit.

Elected leaders show signs of weakness. Sadly, many cave to the demands of special interests, especially during election season. When politicians are more concerned about union endorsements during their re-election bids, the people suffer. If you have no spine, you shouldn’t be in elective office. It’s that simple.

While our leaders continue to go back and forth on what the county needs to do to save money and keep our heads above water, there’s one leader in Nassau County who gets it: Town of Hempstead Supervisor Anthony Santino.

In his 2017 town budget, Santino made a strong and fiscally responsible statement, slashing spending by $13 million. That’s right: the Town of Hempstead will be spending $13 million less to operate in 2017 than it did in 2016. That is a remarkable feat in this day and age.

Santino cut salaries by an unprecedented $19 million, reduced the size of the municipal workforce and continued to cut discretionary spending by 20 percent. The most impressive part of his budget is that this is the first time in three decades that recurring annual revenues are equal to expenses.

“Just as taxpayers work hard to live within a budget, Hempstead Town government is reducing its budget in 2017, controlling costs and doing more with less,” Santino has said. “By slashing the budget by over 3 percent, shrinking the workforce and reducing spending, our town is demonstrating the highest level of respect for taxpayers.”

He deserves to be applauded for putting taxpayers first. In addition to cutting the workforce and trimming salaries, Santino also implemented work shifts and aggressive departmental oversight to deal with the town’s out-of-control overtime costs. As a result, the town projects that in fiscal year 2016 it will be 35 percent below the budgeted amount for overtime costs.

Santino also wisely continued the town’s early retirement/severance program, which focuses on encouraging long-tenured and high-salaried workers to retire, and replacing them with lower-salaried employees who are now required to contribute to the state pension system. The savings generated by this program increased to $5.5 million in fiscal year 2016.

Santino has made smart fiscal decisions that can and should be replicated countywide. Taking on the problem of the current budget crisis will take real bipartisan leadership, and will force our leaders to examine every aspect of county spending, but like Santino proved, it can be done.

Leaders must ask the important questions. How can spending be reduced? What innovations can be implemented to make the workforce more productive? Whatever is not productive should be eliminated. One thing’s for sure. Business as usual can no longer be tolerated.

Al D’Amato, a former U.S. senator from New York, is the founder of Park Strategies LLC, a public policy and business development firm. Comments about this column? ADAmato@liherald.com.