Poll finds corporate growth challenged

Long Island's economy is, at best, treading water now but will improve over the next three years, according to a poll of bankers, lawyers and accountants who work with medium-sized businesses.

The New York chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth said Tuesday 48.6 percent of the people it surveyed last month described the local economy as "stable." Nearly 35 percent said it was "declining;" only 17 percent said "growing." About 59 percent said the local economy would be better by 2015.

Seventy-three people completed the written survey, the association's first in Nassau and Suffolk counties. The poll was conducted at Hofstra University on Jan. 17 as part of an economic forecasting event.

Barry H. Garfield, the association's Long Island chairman and a partner at the accounting firm of Holtz Rubenstein Reminick Llp in Melville, said the poll results were surprisingly pessimistic.

Increasing profits "is going to be as difficult in 2012 as it had been in 2011, but clearly the bleeding has stopped," he said.

When the business professionals in the survey were asked to identify the top two industries that would fuel commercial activity this year, more than 79 percent said health care, followed by financial services, 27 percent, and media, 22 percent.

"I would not have thought of financial services or media as a driver of this economy," Garfield said. "Technology-based companies are more important here."

And even though Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano have wooed the business community, more than half said the politicians' actions had "made no difference" to Long Island companies.