The Nassau County Legislature approved Bruce Blakeman’s 2025 budget that NIFA said ‘threatens the county’s long-term financial stability.’
Getty Images
A resident good government group is asking that the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority, which monitors the county’s finances, reject the county’s adopted 2025 budget of $4.2 billion. The authority group previously found it to be financially risky and violating legal requirements.
“Nassau’s budget needs a giant dose of sunlight and accountability,” Nassau Residents for Good Government wrote. “Since the GOP-led Nassau Legislature has proven it is not up to the task of fulfilling its oversight responsibilities, it falls to NIFA to bring responsible fiscal management to Nassau.”
The resident group asked that the county budget be amended to comply with generally accepted accounting principles and the county charter, that County Executive Bruce Blakeman stop its continued legal expenses amid several lawsuits—which they called ‘govern by lawsuits’—and that a contingency reserve be established for emergency use.
“Blakeman’s unwillingness to comply with the County Charter and GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) is mystifying,” Nassau Residents for Good Government wrote. “It seems Blakeman is baiting NIFA. From a good government perspective, NRGG believes that NIFA has no choice but to reject Blakeman’s structurally unsound budget.”
NIFA Director Richard Kessel said many of the concerns expressed by the nonpartisan group Nassau Residents for Good Government were accurate and issues NIFA had also identified.
He said the financial oversight group is reviewing the budget and will discuss its following actions at a board meeting next week.
The county’s budget was adopted along party lines on Oct. 30, with the county legislature’s Republican majority securing its passage.
“I’m very pleased that the Republican Majority unanimously passed our no tax increase budget over the objections of Democrats, who wanted a tax increase to give them more money to squander away on wasteful spending,” Blakeman, a Republican, said in a statement to the Long Island Press.
NIFA’s 28-page report released Oct. 22 stated the budget has multiple structural shortcomings that may “threaten the county’s long-term financial stability.”
The financial oversight group raised concerns about the county using $30 million of fund balance to balance the budget, a practice that violates generally accepted accounting principles that are legally required to be abided by under the Nassau County Charter and the NIFA Act.
NIFA reported this is “extremely troubling and a sign that the county remains fiscally challenged.”
“Nassau taxpayers expected the GOP-led Legislature to amend Blakeman’s budget, at the very least, to bring it into compliance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and comply with the County Charter,” the resident group wrote. “However, despite being independently elected by the voters, the GOP Legislative Majority made no changes.”
The resident group said Blakeman’s use of federal COVID-19 relief funds, called ARPA funds, is a “one-shot” budget trick to mask the budget imbalance.
“Using ARPA dollars masks the problem,” the resident group wrote. “Operating revenues are insufficient to cover operating costs. Good fiscal discipline requires one-shot revenues to support one-shot expenditures. They should not be used to fund recurring expenses.”
The Nassau Residents for Good Government also called for Blakeman to fix the county’s tax assessment system, which has been plagued with issues for years and frozen since 2012.
Tax rolls were unfrozen in 2019 by former County Executive Laura Curran, and a reassessment was conducted.
No reassessment plan has been suggested under the Blakeman administration to fix the tax assessment program.