The Nassau Interim Finance Authority is poised to impose spending cuts on the county budget for the first time in its 17-year history.
NIFA, established in 2000 to oversee the county’s troubled finances, has threatened to cut Nassau’s spending in the past.
But the board is poised to step in after rejecting the 2017 budget submitted to them by the county Legislature, claiming that some assumptions for revenue were unrealistic.
NIFA Spokesman David Chauvin said the board would make a decision on spending cuts at their next meeting on Dec. 7.
“The NIFA Board is currently deliberating and will comment further once a consensus is reached among the directors,” he said.
On Monday, the legislature’s Presiding Officer Norma Gonsalves (R-East Meadow) sent a letter to NIFA Chairman Adam Barsky.
In the letter, Gonsalves says that NIFA has “departed from (Generally Accepted Accounting Principals) standards” and that NIFA’s refusal to allow bond premiums of a source of revenue “has perpetuated the conditions that allow it to maintain a control period.”
She said revenue from bond premiums could add $30 million in contingent revenue.
Gonsalves also included several additional budget adjustments for the control board’s consideration that would close the $31.5 million budget hole.
The biggest would be to eliminate expenses related to “other than personal services” which includes contract, equipment, general expenses, utilities and outside counsel contracts. This spending cut was identified by the Democratic caucus, the letter said, and would reduce expenses by $15,737,755.
She proposed cutting police overtime, which would save $5 million, and a transfer of money from a Sewer Fund tax increase to the General Fund would bring in $9.8 million.
She also said that NIFA’s predictions for the county’s sales tax revenue were too conservative because the board’s analysis of historical sales tax averages incorporates the slow growth of the Great Recession. She said she expected the tax to yield $7 million in revenue.
One possible solution not mentioned in Gonsalves’ letter would be to bring back the county’s speed cameras, a program that brought much revenue to Nassau but made residents so furious that the cameras were removed after a few months.
Nassau County Presiding Officer Rich Nicollelo (R-New Hyde Park) said that there is no way the county could reinstate the program.
“It was clearly a money grab,” he said. “I think the public is completely opposed to it and cynical about it and I don’t think its something that will happen in the near future.”
He also expressed frustration with NIFA’s inflexibility.
“They’re holding Nassau to a different set of rules than other municipalities,” he said.
