Thursday, October 1, 2026
As leader of the Nassau County Legislature’s minority caucus, I can attest to the frequent conversations my colleagues and I have about how the economy is affecting the families we serve. We have made — and will continue to make — efforts to ease that burden. This includes a recent proposal to temporarily cap the tax on gasoline when the price exceed $3 per gallon.
As of this writing, a public hearing has not even been scheduled for that item.
Those financial pressures were foremost in our minds in our analysis of the 2026 budget. We were faced with tough choices on how to protect taxpayers while ensuring fairness and respect for Nassau’s dedicated workforce.
One component of the budget was the Voluntary Separation Incentive Program — a voluntary “buyout” of $2,000 per year of service that was offered to union members of any age with more than 10 consecutive years of full-time county employment. Such programs are customary as part of a strategy for managing municipal payrolls, and they can work well when appropriate efforts are made to backfill necessary positions that become vacant. But that hasn’t happened in Nassau County.
Before offering our support, members of our caucus stated throughout the process that the public must not suffer from any reduction of services, and that it was essential for the county to work proactively to backfill positions that were essential to core county functions. We were assured time and again by the administration that they would do so — but they haven’t. This has resulted in potentially dangerous short-staffing in vital departments — and the consequences could be tragic.
In Child Protective Services, the supervisors responsible for protecting some of the county’s most vulnerable children and families are stretched thinner than ever, while simultaneously training the next generation of investigators.
In our emergency communications bureaus, recent staffing shortages forced supervisors to pull employees away from other essential duties simply to answer incoming 911 calls. Employees worked through breaks and skipped meals to keep emergency operations functioning. Even then, calls went unanswered, and even some EMS calls have reportedly taken several minutes to be answered.
This troubling story is replicated throughout county government. Departments tasked with assisting struggling families, maintaining our infrastructure and preparing for severe weather all face staffing shortages, heightening the strain on the employees who remain.
Yet while essential services continue to operate with fewer people, costs in one key area within the purview of County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s administration continue to soar. Spending on outside legal counsel has skyrocketed, from roughly $6 million just a few years ago to more than $20 million today. At the same time, the county attorney’s office has not experienced the kind of downsizing seen elsewhere.
As recently as July 27, Blakeman’s administration and the legislative majority approved $730,000 in new outside counsel contracts with a law firm in which Blakeman previously served as a partner — a firm that was co-founded by the man who now leads fundraising efforts for Blakeman’s gubernatorial campaign as its finance chair.
Taxpayers have every right to ask a simple question: If Nassau County can afford tens of millions of dollars for outside lawyers — many of them politically connected — why can’t it fill the positions that residents rely on every day? Even if every contract was awarded properly and based strictly on qualifications, taxpayers deserve to be confident that public dollars are being directed first toward delivering public services.
Imagine what just a portion of those legal bills could mean if invested instead in hiring more 911 operators, social workers, trained snowplow operators and the countless frontline employees who make county government function.
Hiring in these departments is about ensuring that the county can deliver essential services and meet the basic responsibilities that our constituents expect to be addressed by their tax dollars.
Even in the face of such challenges and unsustainable vacancy rates, our county employees continue to do extraordinary work amid critical vacancies — all while the administration spends record sums on outside lawyers.
I believe there is a better choice. Now is the time to make it our priority to ensure that the professionals are in place to answer emergency calls, rescue a child from abuse, help families in crisis, and clear the roads after the next snowstorm.
Delia DeRiggi-Whitton represents Nassau County’s 11th Legislative District, and is the Legislature’s minority leader.
