On October 29, the Nassau County Legislature voted unanimously for the amended 2015 budget. The amended budget eliminated $31million in new funding from a proposed property tax increase and substituted potential revenues from recovery of receivables and unexpended contracts, as well as reduced expenses due to long term debt refinancing. Most of these potential alternate initiatives are deemed unlikely to materialize as the $11 million bond premiums are not permitted by the Nassau County Interim Finance Authority (NIFA) to be used for operating purposes, potential receivables have already been accounted and potential debt restructuring opportunities were previously accomplished. Allowing $6 million for recoveries from unexpended contracts, the Comptroller’s Office projects that the amended budget will have additional risk of over $25 million. Combined with earlier projected budgetary risks of $75 million due mainly to a sharp decline in sales tax revenues, we now project potential budgetary risk of over $100 million.
“The County’s fiscal challenges have not been addressed by the Legislature but in fact have been made worse,” said Comptroller George Maragos. “Relying on uncertain revenues while continuing to increase spending is placing the County in an unsound fiscal state.”
On the basis of the presentation required NIFA, the County’s amended budget is projected to end with a negative $ 286.9 million. Worse, the amended 2015 budget with its potential budgetary risks of $100 million, on top of the projected $76 million 2014 deficit, may result in an unacceptable negative $52 million fund balance by the end of fiscal 2015.