NASSAU County’s budget has taken a body blow: We face a budget gap that could go as high as $150 million. Yesterday, I laid out an emergency plan, stating that “things are as bad as they can be.”
Yes, we managed to handle the $428 million deficit that I confronted when I took office seven years ago. But this crisis is entirely different. The problem then was localized and “machine-made” – created by fraud and fiscal mismanagement. Challenging as it was, that crisis was easier to solve because the state and national economies were in a much stronger position, leaving us many more options for recovery.
So, while today’s numbers are smaller, solving this problem is harder. To start with, Nassau already cut the fat. To solve the new mess, we must cut the heart out of government.
In 2002, “everything out there” was part of the solution. Now “everything else out there” is part of the problem.
Some of the “easier” possible answers include: aggressively seeking more federal assumption of Medicaid costs (something Sen. Chuck Schumer is fighting for) and pursuing state legislation to permit a Nassau cigarette tax, red-light cameras and ticket surcharges.
But we have also developed a brutal plan of closing county offices, ending vital programs for youth and the elderly, shutting county parks and museums and other drastic measures. It includes significant layoffs of management, civil-service employees and police.
Alternately, I’m asking our union leaders to work with us and agree to a 7 percent across-the-board pay cut to prevent these massive layoffs, drastic service cuts and closings of county facilities. Non-union employees, including me, will share equally in the cuts.
I certainly don’t think that Nassau County civil-service, police and corrections unions will happily give back raises or reduce their benefits. But I do believe that our workers will listen to what I have to say.
Thousands of Nassau County residents have lost their jobs. Many more have lost their health-insurance benefits, and many have lost their pensions and life savings to the stock-market crash. So I am asking our union leaders to look at their neighbors and listen to their hearts and to our new president: They’ll understand how much their “shared sacrifice” would mean to so may of their co-workers and their families.
FedEx workers recently took a pay cut to keep their fellow workers at their jobs. Other companies, large and small, are doing the same. Imagine if we did that in Nassau. Instead of gutting county government, every one of us – from the county executive on down – takes a 7 percent pay cut.
I don’t like layoffs, and have never implemented them in my 15 years in public service. But, without an across-the-board cut, I have to dismantle 10 percent of the county workforce.
I believe rank-and-file union members understand what’s happening out there. I hope their leaders will speak with them – and come back to me with suggestions for how we can solve this problem together.
Local governments across the country are facing an economic crisis. I’m hopeful that how Nassau County employees deal with ours will reflect that we understand the true meaning of the term “shared sacrifice.”
Tom Suozzi is the Nassau County executive.