Suffolk budget needs more fiscal discipline

Multiyear budgeting isn't going to fix what's wrong with Suffolk County's finances, but crafting such plans would offer a clearer view of the possible disastrous effects of decisions by County Executive Steve Bellone and the legislature on Suffolk's fiscal future.

A bill from Legis. Tom Cilmi (R-Bay Shore) would require budget planning for three additional years. Bellone, however, is wary of the cost of that plan and says he is examining practices of other municipalities.

The county is on course to spend at least $100 million more than it brings in annually for the next several years. To deal with that, Suffolk each year commits to various one-time budget-saving moves: It essentially borrowed $70 million on the county's Dennison office building in 2013, and will repay $4.8 million annually for 20 years. Since 2011, it has borrowed $317 million from the state to pay annual pension costs that ballooned after the stock market crashed, with repayment spread over the following 12 years. From 2014 to 2017, it has or will borrow about $30 million a year from a reserve fund intended to stabilize sewer rates. And it just agreed to let police officers defer as much as 300 hours of overtime and vacation pay earned in 2015 and 2016 until they retire. The catch: Many of them will get paid for those hours at the significantly higher rates of pay they'll be earning when they cash out in 20 or 30 years.

Each of these moves crushes the budget twice. In 2018, for instance, the money from the stabilization fund will run out, leaving a $30 million hole in the budget. But, and this is often overlooked, there will be additional multimillion-dollar holes caused by repayment with interest of the previous borrowing.

It's not as if Bellone hasn't taken steps to bring the books nearer to balance. When he took office in 2012, he inherited a terrible budgetary situation and deficits even more frightening than what the county faces now. Since then, Suffolk has shed 1,100 employees, privatized its health centers, merged county offices and functions, gotten out from under state demands to build another $112 million jail, and negotiated the sale of the money-losing Foley nursing home. The economy has improved and pension costs are finally moderating. However, sales tax revenue continues to come in under expectations, and expenses, many from labor contracts, have been stubbornly difficult to cut.

So, with the legislature's help, Bellone has gotten creative.

And Suffolk, unlike Nassau County, has received less criticism for borrowing so much to pay operating expenses because its bonded long-term debt, about $1.5 billion, is still less than half of Nassau's. Suffolk has never gotten a big bailout from Albany, as Nassau did in 2000. That's one big reason it does not have a control board on its back, as Nassau does. But if things stay on the current path, that could change. Suffolk might need a control board.

That $1.5 billion debt number is deceptive. Much of the money Bellone has borrowed, like the $317 million in pension fund costs and the money from the stabilization fund, is not part of that figure.

That's why, at the least, a law to require the county to create a real multiyear budget that shows how all this borrowed money will be repaid, and how that will affect future budgets, is an immediate necessity.