North Hempstead to sue Nassau for withholding $1.3M in FIT fees

The Town of North Hempstead plans to sue Nassau County over $1.3 million of sales tax revenue that was recently withheld to cover tuition reimbursement fees at the Fashion Institute of Technology from more than a decade ago.

Town officials said they will seek a court order barring the county from this claim, which applies to the 2004-2005 school year. The money is the first of three billed payments totaling $5 million for the school years from 2004 to 2009.

“We are confident that the court will agree that the town is due the sales tax in its entirety,” said North Hempstead spokeswoman Carole Trottere.

Since 2010, Nassau has billed the town about $5.8 million. Of that amount, $4.5 million has been recouped in the form of withheld sales tax. The county’s effort to collect money dating to 2004 is a move that Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth called “preposterous.”

“2004 is the first year they’re making a claim for now, but who knows what they’ll do in the future,” Town Attorney Elizabeth Botwin said.

Under state law, Nassau previously subsidized tuition fees by paying the difference between out-of-county and in-county tuition rates for each resident attending community college. In 2011, the county decided to charge this amount back to the towns of North Hempstead and Hempstead, as well as the cities of Long Beach and Glen Cove. This fiscal year, Nassau County intends to collect $7.5 million in FIT reimbursement from its municipalities, according to a county review.

Suffolk County instituted FIT chargebacks to its municipalities in 2012, said Vanessa Baird-Streeter, a spokeswoman for County Executive Steve Bellone.

As of the fall of 2015, there were 631 Nassau residents and 627 Suffolk residents attending FIT. Both counties are charged about $11,000 per student to cover tuition fees, amounting to millions more than any other community college chargebacks. In the 2013-2014 school year, FIT chargebacks composed more than half of the $13.6 million that Suffolk County paid for residents to attend 36 community colleges.

Manhattan-based FIT offers two-year associate’s degrees, just like all other SUNY community colleges. However, in the 1970s, FIT expanded its programs, becoming the sole community college in New York State to also offer four-year bachelor and graduate degree programs, said SUNY spokeswoman Holly Liapis.

In a 2011 lawsuit, North Hempstead unsuccessfully argued that FIT should not be considered a community college and that the chargebacks should be limited to two-year associate degrees.

The town also filed a second lawsuit, which is still active, to ask for an accounting of claims for the amounts charged by the county. Town officials said that a motion for summary judgment would soon be filed with the state Supreme Court.

Suffolk County Legis. Tom Cilmi (R-Bay Shore) sponsored a bill in 2011 to distinguish the degree programs and limit FIT chargebacks to two-year degrees. Though the bill passed in the State Senate, it lost traction in the Assembly, and Cilmi said he plans to make a pitch again this year.

Cilmi said that decades ago, FIT was a true community college, but its status has changed.

“New York State law never caught up to it to reclassify the college,” he said. “I just don’t think it’s fair to ask taxpayers to subsidize education to that extent.”