Suozzi Vows Not to Raise Property Taxes
Suozzi vows not to raise property taxes
By Sid Cassese
Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi vowed Tuesday not to raise property taxes next year despite a projected $75-million expenditure hike in the budget he must submit to the county legislature on Tuesday.
"Must be an election in 60 days," responded Nassau County Legis. Peter Schmitt, (R-Massapequa), the legislature's minority leader.
Suozzi said the additional spending results either from state mandates or contractual labor obligations.
Speaking to department heads and other top Nassau officials, the county executive told them that the county's historically low employee head count - 8,800 - must be maintained and that very few people would be hired to replace the more than 600 people who retired this year.
"In addition," he said, "we still must maintain the $130 million budget cut made for this year. To do that, I need to find another $15 million [in savings] in the next week, and I need everyone to look at how we can go that last mile."
Suozzi and his financial aides did not fully spell out how they expected to add spending without raising taxes, but talked more about maintaining the current cuts, through:
not filling vacant jobs;
maintaining low overtime figures for police and correction officers;
consolidating a variety of support services in the finance and purchasing areas;
getting the county's red-light camera program fully operational.
Anticipated new money would come from the second year of federal stimulus, about $43 million, and a variety of much smaller revenue streams, according to Tom Stokes, Suozzi's top financial aide.
Then there's a county cigarette tax, which still must be approved by the State Legislature. Suozzi said it now has the support of the governor and the State Assembly. But that $2 tax has now been dropped to $1.50, and the $20 million anticipated annually will be reduced.
County Legis. Edward Mangano (R-Bethpage), Suozzi's opponent for county executive in November, blamed Suozzi for Nassau's financial woes.
He said Suozzi should have fixed the county's broken tax assessment system, "which cost taxpayers more than $600 million and should not have doubled his staff, which cost the county another $160 million. Right there is a three-quarter-billion fix that he lacks the will to enact."
Stokes, a deputy county executive, responded that Suozzi is "leading the charge on fixing the assessment system, and there are 1,000 fewer employees than when Suozzi took over in 2002."
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