Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano on Tuesday said that the economic state of the county is improving following several initiatives that have brought revenue and jobs to the county.
“Things are looking up,” Mangano said at a meeting of the Nassau County Village Officials Association. “This year certainly better than the last year, last year was better than the year before.”
Speaking at La Marmite Restaurant in Williston Park, Mangano pointed to his administration’s efforts to initiate public-private partnerships, transit-oriented developments, technology projects and green energy projects to improve the economy.
“I think that those are the factors that the county brings to some of the successes that we see in our economy,” Mangano said.
The county executive said a top priority for his administration was to attract companies to build their headquarters in Nassau County, following several years of companies leaving the area.
“For many, many years we were just losing companies,” he said.
Mangano said through the use of tax breaks granted by the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency the county has been able to bring in companies such as Hain Celestial in Lake Success.
“We believe high taxes kills jobs,” Mangano said.
But not everybody was excited about the tax breaks given to companies moving into the county.
Village of Lake Success Mayor Ronald Cooper said the tax breaks shifted the financial burdens to the villages.
Cooper said he was told by county officials that he was not welcomed to comment on Hain Celestial’s application for tax breaks.
“They reached out to me and told me I had no seat at the table,” Cooper said.
Mangano said that the revenue for the village would be “phased in” through a payment-in-lieu of taxes agreement and that his team has been instructed to reach out to village mayors for comments.
Mangano also credited his administration’s efforts to downsize the number of county employees from 13,000 to about 7,400.
Decreasing the number of county workers, Mangano said, will save the county money in retirement and pension costs.
“The future generation is really going to feel the impact of that,” he said. “Right now we suffer from those payments.”
Mangano said that he did not believe downsizing the number of county workers would decrease the services offered to residents.
“Seventy-four hundred [workers] is where I believe the county should be to deliver services,” he said.
Mangano said the elimination of county employees also included the consolidation of the police department, which merged the 3rd and 6th precincts.
“We believe that you can’t perpetuate waste, no matter what the department,” he said.
But Mangano said that the consolidation of the police departments has not affected the safety of the county.
“We’ve become more efficient and crime has gone down,” he said.
Mangano also touted several smartphone applications available to county residents and government leaders, such as “Nassau Now” and “Nassau Works.”
NassauNow, Mangano said, allows residents to make contact a county official about a problem and keep track of who has seen the e-mail.
NassauWorks, Mangano said, allows residents to search for jobs within the county.
