Thursday, October 1, 2026
Often as a Nassau County legislator, I find myself questioning why certain issues unfold the way they do. On many occasions and with increased frequency in this hyper-partisan age, the operations of government are closely tied to politics.
The “why,” however, isn’t always readily apparent — and it’s our job as legislators to dig deeper and identify the cases in which that connection is found beneath the surface.
Take contracts for outside legal counsel, for instance. While the county continues to benefit from an attorney’s office staffed by many qualified lawyers, it is occasionally necessary to outsource highly complex cases to firms with special expertise. The emphasis, however, should be on “occasionally.”
During the administration of former County Executive Laura Curran, the county spent approximately $5 million for this service. Fast-forward to 2025 and the administration of Bruce Blakeman, and a recent audit by the Nassau Interim Finance Agency identified more than $23 million in spending on outside legal counsel last year alone.
Many of these outside-counsel contracts are for cases that are ill-advised legally or should be handled in-house. Some recent examples include spending $3.2 million to defend county fee practices that courts have already ruled illegal or unconstitutional; millions to defend a case brought by Newsday, alleging financial retaliation over critical coverage; and millions more right after Election Day 2025.
The last included a contract for a Republican legislative candidate. While Blakeman’s administration initiated it last spring, they failed to disclose it until after Election Day, when it arrived at the Legislature for our consideration.
While the “why” was abundantly clear in that example, the answer for many of the other contracts can be found only in the fine print. Every proposal the Legislature receives comes with a list of the firm’s political contributions, as required by county law. Most, if not all, of those donations go to the county executive or his Republican colleagues in the Legislature.
The same holds true for Blakeman’s disastrous handling of the Department of Assessment. According to one assessment expert, the tax rolls are more inaccurate now than they have been at any point in the past 25 years — so why has Blakeman chosen to keep them frozen, do nothing, and then dishonestly claim that he “fixed” the system?
Campaign donations.
The firms that challenge homeowners’ assessments each year make huge sums of money by taking advantage of dysfunctional, indefensible tax rolls that are riddled with inaccuracies and discrepancies. And, right on cue, those firms donate generously to Blakeman and the Republicans, who keep the system broken for their benefit — and county property owners are the ones who end up paying the price.
Finally, the “why” I find hardest to accept is related to the county’s nearly $100 million in opioid fund reserves. For nearly five years, most of these funds have sat in bank accounts, and as of December, a review of Nassau’s financial system shows that less than 7 percent of the money has made it out of those bank accounts and into actual treatment initiatives.
The technical nature of the “why” in this case makes it no less an outrage. The county’s financial condition is monitored by Moody’s and other rating agencies, and municipal reserves are a major factor in their determinations. Instead of delivering resources to agencies that offer lifesaving prevention, treatment and recovery resources to people struggling with addiction, Nassau has released the funds at a snail’s pace. Having these funds on the books artificially increases the county’s total reserves. While that may have helped our bond ratings, that’s little comfort for families that are desperate for help and hope.
Now that we understand the “why” behind these glaring examples of dysfunction, it’s incumbent on us all to answer the next-most-important question — “how?” How do we correct these errors? How do we install guardrails to prevent their return? And most important, how do we ensure that we are always serving the people of Nassau County to the best of our ability?
That must be our mission throughout 2026. It’s time for the Legislature to reassert its crucial role as a coequal branch of government, and challenge the county executive when his administration’s actions conflict with the best interests of county residents.
Delia DeRiggi-Whitton represents Nassau County’s 11th Legislative District and is the Legislature’s minority leader.
