Getting Nassau County’s budget under control has been a focal point in the campaign for county executive. To that end, Democratic nominee Laura Curran met with County Executive Ed Mangano last week to discuss the budget, a move that was criticized by her Republican opponent, Jack Martins.
“You can’t review the entire budget in half an hour,” Martins said. “I don’t think [Mangano] can give guidance on how to balance the budget when he hasn’t done it in eight years.”
Martins said he had not spoken to Mangano in over a year. The animosity between the two Republicans likely stems from when Martins called on Mangano to resign in October 2016 after Mangano was charged by federal prosecutors with receiving bribes.
Martins, a former state senator from Old Westbury, said he felt there was nothing new to learn from meeting with Mangano anyway, as he planned to completely restructure the budget if elected.
“The better question for Curran is, what did she get out of her meeting that she didn’t know going in?” he said.
Curran, a county legislator from Baldwin, said she felt that the meeting was worth her time.
“I was curious to hear what he had to say and I didn’t want to play political games,” she said. “I just think it’s good to get as much information from as many sources as you can. The more information you have on day one of the job, the better.”
Mangano has proposed a $2.9 billion budget for 2018 calling for increases in county fees and a 0.8 percent rise in the property tax levy.
There was some agreement between Martins and Curran. Both said the county needed to do more for economic development and both proposed reforms to the Industrial Development Agency to do just that.
The IDA was created to draw businesses to the county by helping them receive tax exemptions. But the candidates said the agency was not doing enough to ensure that county residents were benefiting as well.
“Before granting financial incentives, the IDA needs to ensure they sufficiently benefit the public and are not simply a corporate handout,” Curran said in a statement.
Martins, though less blunt in his assessment, also said the IDA needed to be reformed.
“It is the County Executive’s responsibility to set the tone for economic development, including for the IDA,” he said in a statement.
Both want greater transparency from the IDA. Both want continued updates from the agency on its work. Both want to ensure that local labor is used.
Martins wants to have the IDA involved earlier in the planning process and have the board include representatives from local government. He also wanted a comprehensive review of the IDA to ensure there were no conflicts of interest.
Curran called for IDA projects to use local union labor. Her plan would also require businesses to supply a minimum number of jobs in order to qualify for incentives, and the jobs must be in a stated salary range. Any incentives given to businesses can be suspended or revoked if the company “fails to live up to its part of the bargain,” she said.
Both candidates said it was unacceptable that the county could not attract more business given its good schools, hospitals and proximity to the nation’s largest city.
“Remarkably there are no Fortune 500 companies based in Nassau County, though there is one based in Suffolk County, three in Westchester County and 16 in Northern New Jersey. We must find ways to attract these larger businesses to Nassau County,” Martins said.
