http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-01-27/new-york-seizure-of-nassau-county-finance-shows-tea-party-limits.htmlA New York oversight board’s takeover of finances in Nassau County, the wealthiest outside New York City, may make it harder for the chief executive to promote the anti-tax agenda that helped get him elected.
The Nassau County Interim Finance Authority’s action repudiated the stewardship of County Executive Edward Mangano, who campaigned with Tea Party support. Mangano’s first official act repealed a heating-oil sales tax that cost the county about $40 million at a time when the longest recession since World War II was draining county receipts.
That, combined with rising labor and debt-service costs, left Mangano with an inherited deficit of about $133 million in the $2.6 billion county-funded portion of his 2010 budget. This year, he proposed $100 million in spending cuts and $60 million of increased fees and fines even as Governor Andrew Cuomo prepares to reduce state spending for the first time since 1995.
“You can promise to cut taxes all you want, but once you’re in, you can’t spend more than you raise,” said Lawrence Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. “The economy could have clobbered any county, but Mangano blew a bigger hole in the budget with a tax cut in the face of a fast-collapsing situation.”
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