LEGISLATIVE MAJORITY SUBMITS COMMON SENSE AMENDMENTS TO COUNTY EXECUTIVE’S BUDGET
Returns Money to Taxpayers, Restores Bus Lines, adds additional
Ambulance Personnel, Creates Fund to Pay down debt
(Mineola, NY) - The Majority Caucus of the Nassau County Legislature introduced a series of amendments to the County Executive's 2021 budget to reduce long term costs to the county of borrowing, create a special fund to pay down county debt, partially restore NICE bus funding, provide additional ambulance personnel and creating a special fund meant to pay down County debt and reducing the burden on taxpayers and ratepayers
The Majority has created a more fiscally conservative plan. The administration seeks to generate as much cash as possible in 2021 while increasing costs in future years and deferring any attempt to deal with Nassau’s structural imbalance, especially the more $587 in tax refund liability, much of which is accumulating interest.
The Majority’s amended budget returns to the taxpayers excess tax receipts in the Sewer Finance Authority Fund and general fund, partially restores monies to NICE bus, additional personnel to the county’s ambulance services and provides more funding for Minority Affairs and the Office of Asian American Affairs.
“These commonsense amendments to the County Executive’s budget provide a more conservative framework for dealing with the county’s finances. The amendments will reduce the cost of restructuring debt, and will create special revenue fund to attack the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax refund liability,” said Presiding Officer Richard Nicolello “The Majority’s amendments to the 2021 budget will help Nassau County and our residents to continue to recover financially from the effects of COVID-19.”
In addition to returning money to taxpayers, the Majority also amended the budget to include:
- Partial restoration of bus service: The Majority is including an amendment that reinstates $4,385,177 of the money the County Executive cut from NICE Bus funding, to preserve necessary service hours.
- Provide funding to the Office of Asian American Affairs: The Majority Amendment will provide $50,000 to the office for an administrative position.
- Provide funding to the emergency ambulance bureau: The Majority amendment will allow the Emergency Ambulance Bureau to increase their positions by 4 people and adds $168,000 to their budget to make sure they continue to be able to provide stellar care.
- Restore Smart Sprinkler Funding: The Majority Amendment will restore an incentive to install Smart Sprinkler technology throughout Nassau County. This technology saves water and protects the environment. The amendment restores the $100,000 to the Department of Consumer Affairs needed for the program. .
- Restore District Attorney Technology Funding: The Majority Amendment will restore $345,000 to the Office of the District Attorney budget for the purchase of necessary office equipment.
- Creation of Special Revenue Fund: The Majority amendment will create a special revenue fund to which all sales tax revenues in excess of the adopted budget are to be deposited, as well as any budgeted funds in any budget line that become surplus as a result of the receipt of federal aid to address the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of this fund will be to fully or partially fund principal and interest payments on debt issued in 2021 or later and utilized to pay tax certiorari settlements and judgments.