New state budget does Long Island no favors

That new state budget is going to hurt Nassau and Suffolk counties at a time when Nassau is desperate and Suffolk is still working to weather the ongoing economic storm. Which is going to make building 2011 budgets - which are due in September - all the more difficult in both counties.

What's the damage?

The counties don't have total dollar numbers. At least not yet. But, based on the few preliminary figures trickling down last week, officials know that bottom line, they'll end up with millions of dollars less than they got last year.

But one of the biggest problems, officials said, is that Albany slammed down even more mandates while reducing funding for them.

Take the state's new law requiring that interlocking devices be installed on the vehicles of drunken drivers. The county probation departments are supposed to monitor the interlock program.

But the state didn't give Nassau or Suffolk more funds for that. In fact, according to Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, the state reduced funding for probation to a level that is even less than it was last year.

And the problem doesn't stop there.

Under the law, the counties are supposed to find a way to pay for the devices for indigent DWI offenders.

"Where's that going to come from?" Levy said. "It's insane."

Like many municipalities, Nassau and Suffolk have been looking to Washington, where Congress is on the verge of giving the state $600 million, of which nearly $100 million will trickle down to Long Island school districts.

Congress is also looking at Medicaid relief but there's no guarantee that, if approved, the state would pass that money down to local governments.

Meanwhile, the state's reductions in funding for social services is going to leave Suffolk, and especially Nassau, scrambling.

"We're going to get less money for services that, because of the economy, more people need," said Timothy Sullivan, head of Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano's budget office. "It sort of pushes the pain down and we are toward the end of the line."

So what does that mean for residents - who are at the end of the line? It could - especially in Nassau - mean service cuts, which usually come from youth, elderly and other social services. Levy, as he has repeatedly, said that selling the county's nursing home would be essential to helping keep Suffolk's finances and services in place.

Sullivan said that Nassau is still building its 2011 budget proposal. Levy said that Suffolk had built its preliminary 2011 budget proposal on the assumption that Albany wouldn't be of much help.

As it is, officials in both counties said, the state's financial squeeze has been squeezing Long Island for some time. In Nassau, officials are waiting for $60 million in late revenues from the state. "It just messes up our whole cash flow," Sullivan said.

In Suffolk, the county is waiting for $200 million in late revenue. "We know we're going to get them, or most of them anyway," Levy said.

But because of the state's tardiness, Levy said, the county was forced to sell a larger than expected amount of tax-anticipation notes, earlier in the year than planned. Sullivan said Nassau could be forced to do the same.

Levy is also angry about Albany's decision to delay promised tax incentives for local businesses.

"These businesses took on debt and created jobs and now the state is not going to do what it said it would do," he said. "That is not good for Suffolk, that is not good for New York."

Which is why, for local voters fed up with Albany's continuing dysfunction, November can't come soon enough.