Since Richard Nicolello (R-New Hyde Park) started his career as a legislator for the county’s 2nd District in 1996, he said, some of the biggest issues facing the county have not changed.
The government’s costs have continued to increase, while its tax resources have decreased and residents’ adamant opposition to new or higher taxes has stayed consistent, Nicolello told Blank Slate Media in a sit-down interview.
“You have to do everything in your power to balance these budgets, to secure additional revenue, or cut expenses without raising taxes,” he said. “So it’s a difficult proposition.”
Now, the Legislature’s Deputy Presiding Officer — who represents New Hyde Park, Garden City Park, Williston Park, East Williston, Albertson, Plandome and parts of Roslyn — and his colleagues are taking some new steps to confront some of the county’s major financial issues.
For one, he said, legislators have made “incremental improvements” to the county’s contract process to help safeguard it from corruption.
The system came under additional scrutiny after federal investigators found state Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) had used his political power to pressure county officials into approving a contract for AbTech Industries, an environmental technology company for which his son Adam Skelos served as a consultant and lobbyist.
“It’s just like everything else in political life — when something goes wrong, there’s a huge whirlwind of activity that results from it,” said Nicolello, who chairs the Legislature’s finance committee and is running for his eleventh term as a legislator.
Contractors are now required to disclose the names of any lobbyists with whom they are working to get a contract approved.
The Legislature is also considering rules requiring that legislators be told if a potential contractor is a felon or has defaulted on other contracts.
Another proposed measure would subject contracts worth less than $25,000 to more scrutiny from lawmakers.
The Legislature’s rules committee currently votes on those smaller contracts in blocks, but the new rule would allow them to pull out individual contracts and examine them “in-depth,” Nicolello said.
While Nicolello said he thinks the contract process is fair and that the officials in charge of it pick the right contractor “99.9 percent of the time,” these changes could make it less prone to abuse.
If someone who has a felony background is not known to the committees, or if someone who has defaulted on other contracts with the county, or any of those things — if they’re slipping through, then obviously you have to tighten up the process,” he said.
Nicolello also said he is working to eliminate the county’s annual $80 million expense commercial property tax refunds.
The county now requires that business owners challenging the county’s assessment of their property values have to disclose their income and expense records up front.
This helps county officials determine how many of the grievances have merit early on and make the necessary adjustments to the tax rates, he said.
The business owners who do have their claims heard will then pay their full assessed taxes.
The difference between that amount and the amount they say they should pay will go into an “escrow account,” Nicolello said, which is separate from the rest of the county’s budget.
Those that win their grievances will then be paid out of that escrow account so that the county does not have to spend money from its operating budget on refunds. The rest goes back to the county or municipalities involved in the grievances.
“The refunds, in years to come, will just disappear,” he said. “That’s an $80 million hit that’s going to come off our budget.”
In addition to these new laws, Nicolello touted his role in creating what he calls “public-private partnerships,” such as the Nassau Inter-County Express bus service, which he said have saved the county money.
To Mal Nathan, Nicolello’s Democratic challenger, these partnerships make public services less accountable by pushing them into the private sector, he told Blank Slate Media in September.
The partnerships could make some improvements, Nicolello said, such as a potential expansion of NICE’s bus services for people with disabilities.
But those kinds of improvements also cost money, and the county’s level of revenue has struggled in recent years, Nicolello said.
Contributors to this have been a drop in sales taxes, primarily caused by lower gas prices, and a large number of tax breaks for commercial developments that failed to create as many jobs as officials expected.
Nicolello said he favors Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano’s plan to install a casino in the county to raise revenue, and that he does not think it was misguided to include potential revenue from it in the county budget.
“This is a form of entertainment that people want to do, it is a way to raise revenue for the county and it’s a way to capture money that’s escaping through to other places,” he said.
Nicolello has a financial advantage in the race for the 2nd District seat. Oct. 2 campaign finance filings show he has $9,255.40, compared to the $2,000 Nathan said he had at the end of September.
The district also contains 18,448 registered Republicans, compared to 15,683 registered Democrats.
Overall, Nicolello said, he thinks his experience and accomplishments as a legislator, as well as his dedication to his constituents, qualify him for another term.
“The other part of it is to continue to be available to the residents and be a guy that they can call … and we’ll follow up and get things done for them,” he said.
