It’s budget season. You may think that the only thing to be concerned about is that taxes remain flat or are cut – certainly politicians seeking election seem to think so – but I would contend that should not be the sole measure.
Budgets set out, line by line, dollar by dollar, what a society values, what a community prioritizes. The allocations make real the rhetoric, slogans, ideals and vision, the quality of our everyday lives and the investments in our future.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman is so proud his proposed budget, which calls for $4.1 billion in spending (up $180 million from 2023, of which $3.9 billion is paid for from revenue, so that must mean $200 million is being applied from the fund balance), keeps property taxes and most county fees flat, when Democrats are chiding him for not cutting taxes as he promised.
Actually, it would seem that taxes would have increased but for the once-in-a-lifetime $385 million funding from the American Rescue Plan Act the county hasn’t spent, and nearly $83 million in opioid settlement money ($30 million pledged so far, only $2.24 million actually spent). These are swelling Nassau’s various reserve funds to $1,022,899, including a new Operating Reserve Fund of $55 million.
heoretically, the federal government could claw back unspent ARPA funding, but because the funding has been transferred formally into the county budget, it’s not at risk. So it’s just sitting there to fatten the county’s finances – or cover shortfalls in anticipated revenue – rather than being invested in the future as ARPA was intended. This once-in-a-generation funding should be invested in climate resilience, as the recent (repeat) flooding and evacuation in Elmont demonstrates.
Legislator Joshua Lafazan (D–Woodbury) and the Democrats are outlining their strategy for making Nassau County more storm resilient and strengthening infrastructure to better cope with the “hundred-year storms” that are becoming frighteningly more commonplace. (The capital plan is due Oct. 15, and the budget vote is on Oct. 30.)
North Hempstead Supervisor Jennifer DeSena is even more invested in tax cuts because her re-election campaign, consisting of a deluge of mailers attacking her opponent, the former (accomplished) Supervisor Jon Kaiman for having raised taxes, has actually nothing else to show for her time in office.
The singular achievement she boasts is cutting taxes for 2023, but that was after she had called for a 2.1% tax increase. She told the Lakeville Civic Association she “discovered” reserves she could apply to reduce taxes – actually suggesting at the time that the information was withheld, even after documents were presented at a Town Board meeting which showed she (or her staff) knew about the town’s fund balance policy. So she reversed course and proposed a whopping 11 percent cut. “Discovered?” You would think the town supervisor would have been more clued in to the town’s finances, how a budget works and what her 11 percent cut would do to the reserves.
But the reason DeSena was able to cut taxes in 2023 was because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought the town $10 million in ARPA funds, and the post-pandemic economic recovery, which bumped up mortgage and sales tax revenues, adding $6 million to the fund balance, Councilmember Veronica Lurvey, who is running to become receiver of taxes, said.
“Because budgets represent values and priorities, the Democrats on the Town Board submitted amendments to the supervisor’s proposed 2023 budget that still included a tax decrease (albeit a smaller one, at 5%), and instead allocated the difference to quality of life projects, such as road paving, concrete and sidewalk repair, tree work, and beautification projects throughout the Town,” Lurvey said. “All of these funding allocations benefit residents throughout the Town.”
ARPA funds cannot be used for a direct tax cut, but they can be applied to replace lost revenue that otherwise would be paid from taxes, so indirectly could lower taxes. In 2022, $1 million of the ARPA funds were allocated to replace lost revenue to the Port Washington parking district. “If we had not done so, the Town would most likely have had to either raise taxes or the amount charged to the residents for parking (an indirect tax),” Lurvey said.
DeSena clearly realizes that her only pitch for re-election is based on cutting taxes, so she just proposed her 2024 budget with an extraordinary tax cut that would wipe out town reserves. That means there would be no funds in reserve to address an emergency or climate disaster such as the flooding we just had, or get through an economic downturn that would cut into projected mortgage and sales tax revenue. The likely result would be a downgrade in bond rating from Aaa that previous administrations from May Newburger to Jon Kaiman through Judi Bosworth worked so hard to achieve, which would increase the cost of capital projects.
“Reliance on a one-shot use of reserves to fill budget gaps ultimately will result in multimillion-dollar holes in the budget that will devastate town programs and services for years to come,” warned Kaiman, who hopes to topple DeSena and return to the office he held for 10 years.
“It is one of the most irresponsible, unprofessional and incompetent budget documents ever presented to the Town Board. It disregards basic fiscal management practices and will undermine the financial stability of the town for years to come solely for the personal political purpose of allowing her to claim she offered double-digit tax cuts in town budgets.”
At the federal level, Republicans have taken delight in taking hostage the nation’s budget and economy to extort unacceptable, unpopular policy and program cuts they could not win legislatively. They constantly demonstrate they have no clue nor care about how to build a sustainable economy that benefits everyone, not just the top 1%, clinging to their discredited “trickle down economics” that added $2 trillion to the national debt.
Democrats were able to forestall a government shutdown with a 45-day reprieve, but the crisis is not over.
As Biden has accurately said, a budget is a statement of values, a declaration of priorities. And so I ask, what do the Republicans value and what have they actually done to make your life, your family, your community better?
