Legislator Weighs in on Nassau Budget

According to o, since Nassau’s labor unions have not provided the voluntary concessions required by law, the county executive has submitted plans that achieve $73.2 million in annual reoccurring labor-related budget savings as required by the 2012 budget to the

To date, negotiations have not produced the required voluntary savings. This first-round of automatic triggers will be implemented through legislation which institutes layoffs and demotions. The plan includes:

• An approximate 400 headcount reduction through layoffs and attrition (no police officers will be taken off the streets).
• 200-plus demotions.

“The big picture is that expenses of government keep rising, for example the cost of pensions and health care costs alone [in the coming year] are increasing over $100 million,” said . “There are other increases in the county budget and our challenge has been to try to absorb those within the budget without increasing taxes.”

The legislation submitted on Nov. 28 will be amended to reflect any labor deal reached. The budget provides that if an additional $75 million in budget savings are not reached by Feb. 1, 2012, additional labor savings/reductions will occur.

“You look at what’s been going on in the economy and we realize that you really can’t [put] additional burdens on people,” Nicolello said. “We’ve done a number of different things over the last couple of years…but the bottom line is that most of the county discretionary expenses are personnel costs. It’s a $2.2 billion dollar budget, but most of that — the majority of that — is simply mandated programs…so the only potential way we can attain those kinds of savings is personnel.”

According to the county, with the average compensation package reaching $285,692 for superior officers, $246,668 for detectives, $198,357 for PBA officers, $155,005 for sheriff officers and $109,461 for CSEA employees, there is room to help Nassau County government through this "tough economy."

Nicolello said that if negotiations cannot be made with the union, “we’re going to be laying people off and that’s the last thing you want to do in this economy.”