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Fair NIFA poised to cut county budget for first time
Republicans make last-minute try at balancing budget, but control board stands firm
The state board that oversees Nassau County’s finances is likely to impose its own cuts on the $3 billion budget when they meet next week, after lawmakers failed to adequately make up a $31.5 million revenue shortfall, a spokesman said.
The cuts would be a drastic move, and a first, for the board that has exercised fiscal control over Nassau for 17 years
“The Nassau County Interim Finance Authority is reviewing a proposal from the legislature to determine which items are acceptable — or not,” David Chauvin, a NIFA spokesman, said on Tuesday. “The NIFA Board will then determine how the difference will be made up by additional cuts.”
A budget that met NIFA’s standards as balanced was due on Monday.
Presiding Officer Norma Gonsalves, in a last-minute effort to satisfy the control board, sent a letter on Monday to NIFA’s chairman, Adam Barsky, proposing several new adjustments to the budget.
It was important to note, Gonsalves said, that NIFA was departing from Generally Accepted Accounting Standards this year when its directors said that the county could not use bond premiums as revenue, and essentially accused the control board of tying the county’s hands to keep it under NIFA control.
“NIFA’s treatment of bond premium has perpetuated the conditions that allow it to maintain a control period as per the NIFA statute,” Gonsalves said.
Gonsalves and the Republicans agreed to a Democratic initiative also pushed by incoming Democratic county executive, Legislator Laura Curran, that would cut a number of outside contracts, including legal services, to hopefully save $15.7 million.
Another million dollars could be found, Gonsalves said, by more efficiently collecting fines owned by traffic ticket scofflaws. She also said that, after consulting with the county comptroller, Republicans estimate $5 million more in sales tax revenue.
The county is also due $3.5 million in funds from Suez Environmental, which operates the county sewer system, Gonsalves said.
The Republican-controlled legislature was informed earlier in November that NIFA would not accept outgoing County Executive Ed Mangano’s budget after lawmakers removed $59 million in revenues from fee increases that were universally unpopular. Both parties submitted a number of amendments in efforts to make up the revenue, but NIFA saw many of the measures as too risky.
In their analysis of the amended budget, NIFA's directors said that legislators should make $31.5 million in budget cuts to make up for the risky assumptions and revenue schemes they identified in the budget. NIFA's report framed the cuts as necessary to protect future generations of taxpayers from picking up the bill for current financial mismanagement.
“These ordered cuts, which can be in the form of credible and recurring expenditure reductions or revenue increases, will help to ensure that operations of the county will be conducted within the resources available and ensure that future generations will not inherit a disproportionate responsibility for the actions of the current generation,” NIFA's directors wrote.
Democratic and Republican legislators vowed at the last budget hearing that the controversial fee increases for real estate transactions and traffic tickets would stay out of the budget.
On Tuesday, Chauvin said that NIFA’s directors had yet to review the new proposals from Gonsalves, but did not sound an optimistic note.
“Basically we’re going to review the document,” he said, “ and if we believe it doesn’t add up, we will make our own cuts.”
Barsky was not available for comment by press time, but said, in a published interview with Newsday on Monday, that the legislature was out of time, and NIFA would be making cuts.
