By Scott Brinton
Weitzman (D-Great Neck Estates) ticked off numerous ways in which the county had wasted tax dollars under former County Executive Thomas Gulotta (R-North Merrick), before current Executive Thomas Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) was swept into office in 2001.
During Gulotta's tenure, Weitzman said, the county hooked up some 1,700 phone lines and left them active, but never used them. The cost to the county: $700,000 annually.
At Nassau's jail in East Meadow, the comptroller said, the county screened every inmate for tuberculosis even though there hadn't been a TB case at the jail for years. The cost to the county: $1 million a year.
Weitzman said Nassau has now returned to fiscal solvency by slashing such waste, raising taxes, reducing the county work force through attrition by 1,000 employees so far (with 400 more cuts planned), taking advantage of refinancing opportunities with today's lower interest rates and reorganizing several departments.
The county expects a "small" surplus for 2002 in its more than $2-billion budget, the comptroller said. He wouldn't give a figure for the surplus, however, saying he was still crunching the numbers and would release it in the near future.
The comptroller's pronouncement came a year after he and County Executive Suozzi took office. Before that, Nassau's annual deficits had often soared well past $100 million and, in certain years, had reached as high as $300 million. Meanwhile, the county's debt climbed to more than $2 billion.
Weitzman believes that Nassau County is, at least for now, on solid financial ground, at a time when New York City and Suffolk and Westchester counties are faltering in the midst of a hard-hitting recession.
"You're not going to be reading about Nassau County's budget problems anywhere" in 2003, said Weitzman.
Still, the county faces a host of budget challenges over the coming years, both Weitzman and Denenberg (D-Merrick) said.
Myriad challenges ahead
For starters, sales-tax receipts, on which the county depends as a major income source, could, at any time, drop off. Despite a sluggish economy, Nassau's sales-tax collections grew during 2002. In fact, receipts rose 5 percent, twice as much as what the county had projected, said Weitzman. That upward trend, however, could quickly change if the national economy remains in a slump.
At the same time, the county expects its health-insurance premiums and pension and Medicaid payments to skyrocket during the next few years, Weitzman said.
With a deflating economy, the comptroller explained, an increasing number of people depend on Medicaid when they lose their jobs and their health insurance. That means the county expects to pay more into the federal program.
The poor economy has also sent stock prices -- and government pension funds that are heavily invested in common stocks -- plummeting. The county thus must pay more into the New York state pension fund to make up for losses in the stock market. During the booming 1990s, Nassau relied on the state pension fund as a revenue stream; surpluses from stock dividends went back to the county.
Finally, the yearly increases in health-insurance premiums remain in the double digits as health-care costs jump annually, Weitzman said. Health-insurance premiums now consume 8 percent of the county budget. County employees currently pay nothing for health insurance, a benefit negotiated before Suozzi took office.
With such a grim financial outlook, the county has taken flak for raising county spending by $150 million in 2002. Denenberg, however, said that the county had reduced expenditures by $150 million in 2000 and $100 million in 2001.
The legislator also explained that the county had little to no control over the 2002 spending hikes. For example, the Nassau Interim Finance Authority -- the state panel overseeing the county's finances -- is requiring the county to budget for increases in labor contracts that haven't yet been signed.
The biggest of those is the police union contract, which is expected to go to arbitration. The average Nassau County police officer now earns more than $100,000 a year.
NIFA required the county to budget ahead for 4-percent increases in labor contracts -- or $100 million a year. These contracts, Denenberg noted, "may or may not happen."
The rest of the spending increases, the legislator said, will go to state-mandated expenses.
Hope for Nassau
There is hope for Nassau, however, according to Weitzman.
The county is creating a sewer and storm-water authority that will break off from Nassau. As an independent agency, the authority will be able to refinance Nassau's sewer debt through the state, saving county taxpayers $30 million annually without raising the cost of sewer service.
The county plans to save another $30 million a year by "civilianizing" many of the Police Department's clerical jobs that are now performed by uniformed officers.
Additionally, the county executive has taken control of Nassau's Parking Violations Bureau, which a panel of judges had previously headed. Weitzman called the bureau the worst-run department in the nation's worst-run county. With steady collection of parking tickets, Nassau expects to bring in tens of thousands of additional dollars each year.
Now the county wants New York state to authorize a significant change in its property-tax refund system. Currently, when homeowners win challenges to their property-tax assessments, Nassau County pays their entire refund -- including that for school and town taxes.
Weitzman said that's unfair to Nassau, particularly because the county portion of a homeowner's total tax bill amounts to 19 percent, while the school portion exceeds 60 percent.
The county's proposal, however, remains mired in controversy. The change would require approval by the state Legislature. Albany lawmakers, though, appear reluctant to back the plan while school superintendents from throughout Nassau voice vehement opposition to it.
The county has, however, extended the period during which it can respond to assessment challenges from three to 15 months, giving Nassau more time to fight the challenges and, if necessary, issue refunds. The change, which received state legislative approval, is expected to save the county hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of tax dollars.
The county's recent reassessment of all properties is also projected to save Nassau tens of millions of dollars. Over the decade before Suozzi took office, the county had paid out an average of $100 million a year in property-tax refunds because of a faulty, outdated assessment system. Properties were assessed according to their 1938 construction costs, with 1964 land values added into the mix.
The county used to pay out one of every seven tax dollars it took in for property-tax refunds, said Denenberg.
With properties now assessed according to current fair-market values, the county expects fewer challenges to its assessments, and Nassau officials say homeowners won't be able to win tax certiorari cases as often.
Weitzman said there's also a new attitude in the Comptroller's Office. "We're treating the county's money as if it's our own money," he said.
