While Tom Suozzi’s time as Nassau County executive was not free from controversy, two of congressional opponent Steve Stern’s criticisms of his record are factually questionable.
Stern and Suozzi, running for the Democratic nomination in the North Shore’s 3rd Congressional District, have sparred over their records on taxes and support for abortion rights in the past two weeks.
Stern, a Suffolk County legislator, has charged Suozzi raised taxes as Nassau County executive after promising not to, and that he gave “millions of taxpayer dollars” to abstinence-only education programs, of which abortion-rights groups often disapprove.
Stern has added that he has never voted for a general-fund property tax increase in Suffolk County.
Suozzi has called Stern’s claims false and countered that Stern voted to raise the county’s police taxes, which he said comprise a larger portion of the tax bill.
Suozzi did fund abstinence-only sex-education programs with taxpayer money — which Stern has said he would never support — but did not give them “millions of taxpayer dollars.”
A Stern press release links to a 2006 New York Times report about a plan Suozzi released that year to decrease the number of abortions.
It gave $3 million over three years, or $1 million a year, in eight grants to groups including Planned Parenthood and Catholic Charities, according to multiple 2006 news reports.
Two grants were to a Protestant group and an anti-abortion group to promote abstinence, the Times reported.
In the first year $70,000 went to the Cedarmore Corporation of Freeport’s Zion Cathedral Church of God in Christ; and $90,000 to the Massapeque-based Life Center of Long Island for abstinence-based sex-education programs, according to a posting on a blog called “Health Portal” that cites a 2006 county press release. The release is no longer on the county’s website.
Another $85,000 went to Nassau Board of Cooperative Educational Services for programs that included abstinence and others that did not, “Health Portal” said.
Those grants total $245,000, meaning Suozzi’s program would have given $735,000 toward abstinence education efforts over three years if those funding levels were maintained, less than the “millions” Stern claimed.
Stern has also said Suozzi hiked Nassau’s property taxes after promising not to do so.
The claim is not blatantly false, as Suozzi has said, but no tax increase Suozzi implemented as county executive directly contradicted an earlier promise.
News reports from 2001 say Suozzi lobbied for a 19.2-percent property tax increase in the county’s 2002 budget before taking office as county executive, and none mention a campaign promise not to raise taxes.
Suozzi congressional campaign consultant Kim Devlin said he never promised not to raise taxes in his 2001 and 2005 county executive campaigns, both of which she ran.
“Tom did not make false promises just to win votes,” Devlin said in a statement.
After hiking property taxes another 19.4 percent the next year, his first in office, Suozzi pledged not to raise them again for the rest of that term, a December 2002 New York Times report says.
Property taxes next rose 3.9 percent in 2009 after five years without an increase, according to then-county Comptroller Howard Weitzman’s review of that budget.
The same year, Suozzi imposed a deeply unpopular 2.5-percent home energy tax that current County Executive Edward Mangano repealed.
Stern’s campaign pointed to the energy tax as an example of Suozzi breaking an earlier promise not to raise taxes.
Suozzi did raise taxes after promising not to, but six years separated the tax hikes and the 2002 promise, which Suozzi made only for his first term.
Suozzi has accused Stern of being dishonest for saying he has never approved a general-fund property tax increase in Suffolk County despite increases in police district taxes.
Stern has never denied that he voted to raise police taxes.
“It’s clear that Tom Suozzi will try anything to disguise a record that has been soundly rejected by voters time and time again,” Stern said in a statement. “I am the only candidate in this race who has never raised general fund property taxes. That’s a fact and Tom Suozzi knows it.”
Suffolk’s 2016 budget grew the police district tax levy by 2.9 percent to about $521.5 million from about $506.8 million in 2015, county budget documents say.
Police taxes account for more than 89 percent of the county government’s tax revenue, while general fund taxes account for about 8.4 percent, budget documents say. School districts account for about 69 percent of total collected taxes in the county.
