Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano vowed last Friday to slash $41 million from this year’s budget and warned of the institution of liens against the county’s bank accounts if Democrats in the Legislature fail to approve borrowing to pay for property tax refunds.
“We will have to be prepared to make these draconian cuts so our bank accounts stay unfrozen, so we can continue to pay the costs and operations of government including our employees’ salaries,” Mangano said during last week’s press conference, which was attended by the county Legislature’s Republican members.
Mangano and the county Legislature’s Presiding Officer Peter Schmitt (R-Massapequa) are seeking approval of a plan to borrow $102 million to fund property tax refunds, which are owed to county residents.
It is a borrowing proposal, which Mangano said will be concluded by 2015 and has been approved by the Legislature and the Nassau Interim Finance Authority on a conditional basis.
“We are hopeful that the Democratic minority will put politics down and put people first,” Schmitt said.
The borrowing proposal will be the subject of a vote during a county Legislature meeting on Monday at 1 p.m. at the Theodore Roosevelt Executive and Legislative Building in Mineola.
For any borrowing to be approved, the 19-member Legislature must support the proposal by a two-thirds majority.
With Republicans holding a 10-9 majority, that would mean at least three members of the Democratic caucus would have to cross party lines for the borrowing to be approved.
“I want to be clear, there’s going to be immediate consequences on (Monday) if the minority doesn’t support the bonding,” Schmitt said. “We have worked very diligently with the administration to put the bonding into a format to remove all extraneous objections.”
If the bond proposal is not approved, Mangano said at least five “massive cuts” will be made to the county’s budget.
Those cuts include a furlough for all “nonessential” county employees and the closure of a majority of Nassau offices on Mondays, a news release circulated at the press conference said.
The county’s Youth Board, Office of Mental Health, Chemical Dependency and Developmental Disabilities could also be eliminated by cuts, along with Nassau’s Red Light Camera Dedicated Fund, the release said.
To avoid those cuts, Mangano said his borrowing proposal must be approved.
“This is not a game,” Mangano said. “This is not a threat. You’ve hit reality.”
“We pull no punches here,” the county executive added. “It’s time to come together and stop the nonsense. There’s plenty of other time to discuss politics.”
But for the Democratic members of the Legislature, it is Mangano who is playing a dangerous game of politics.
“This is another blatant example of Ed Mangano trying to deflect responsibility for his mismanagement of the county’s finances for the last two and half years,” Nassau County Legislator Wayne Wink (D-Roslyn) said.
Democrats in the Legislature have previously indicated they would not support any further borrowing until they can come to an agreement on fair redistricting with Republicans.
“We would urge the county executive to come up with something other than what seems to be his constant go-to position, which is borrowing to bail himself out,” Wink said.
