Levy wants to shift tuition costs to towns

County Executive Steve Levy wants to shift $10.25 million in college costs the county has long paid to Suffolk's 10 towns.

Levy, who included the proposal in his final $2.7-billion budget, wants the towns to pay the county's share for Suffolk students who attend state community colleges outside of Suffolk as well as the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan.

The county executive did not include the cost shift in any of the news releases that accompanied his 2012 budget and made no mention of the change in the budget narrative. The proposal on local towns was included in a single line of the 1,230-page spending package.

"This is a secret Steve Levy tax increase that he's dropping in the laps of the towns at the 11th hour and 59th minute," said Brookhaven Supervisor Mark Lesko, chairman of the Suffolk town supervisors association.

Levy declined to be interviewed Tuesday, but his spokesman, Mark Smith, said the chargebacks are allowed under state law and shifting the cost to Suffolk towns "is a matter of equity and fairness." Towns that send the most students to schools outside of Suffolk would pay the largest share of the cost.

"It places the responsibility on the towns more equitably based on the number that use the service," he said.

Levy, who has criticized for years unfunded state mandates on the county -- most recently $17 million in cuts to county health centers -- disclosed the proposed shift to towns Thursday. Levy's move comes as town officials are putting the final touches on their own 2012 budgets.

Supervisors have held two conference calls among themselves on how to combat Levy's initiative, and Lesko sent a letter to Levy Tuesday asking for a meeting early next week. Lesko said what angers him most is that Levy is not cutting county taxes to offset the increase he is handing the towns.

"This will make the MTA tax look like pennies on the dollar," Lesko said, referring to the unpopular state transit tax. "He is now mandating a tax increase for all the towns."

Presiding Officer William Lindsay (D-Holbrook) said the tuition issue is just one of a number "of questionable revenues" that Levy has included in his final budget. "This is absolutely the worst budget this county has ever seen, and Mr. Levy is absolutely hypocritical for passing these costs down to the towns," Lindsay said.

The county legislature, which can amend Levy's budget proposal, will convene a bipartisan committee Thursday to begin reviewing the budget.

Smith countered that the budget's "difficult decisions" were caused because lawmakers earlier "hit the snooze button" on tough fiscal issues like selling or closing the money-losing nursing home.