It’s only January and County Executive Edward Mangano is already showing that he has no intention of cooperating with the Nassau Interim Finance Authority and its new chairman Jon Kaiman.
The board has asked Mangano to rescind $800,000 in raises and benefits awarded to appointed, nonunion employees over the past year despite a three-year wage freeze imposed by the board.
Thirty-two raises went to appointees who are not members of a union and do not have civil service protection and can be hired or fired at will.
To sidestep NIFA restrictions, 25 appointees received new job titles along with increased pay.
Meanwhile the salaries of union workers remained frozen.
Mangano and Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos argued that the employees getting the raises had taken on added responsibilities in a downsized government and earned the extra pay.
Kaiman does not agree that the freeze imposed by NIFA does not include non-union employees such as the county’s lawyers.
In a letter to NIFA board members, counsel and staff, Kaiman writes, “there is universal agreement about what we intended . . . as well as the negative consequences that could ensue by giving increases to selective nonunion employees.”
He then threatens to call the NIFA board together to consider sanctions against the county.
For the time being, he said, rescinding the raises would be a step in the rights direction.
No one should be happy that a non-elected board has been given oversight over the county’s finances. This, however, was an alternative to bankruptcy.
Mangano’s actions appear to a slap in the face to unions such as the Nassau Police Benevolent Association.
More importantly he is signaling that he has no intention of working with NIFA to resolve the county’s long-term financial problems.
