What to watch in Nassau legislative races
Nassau County Legislature in session in Mineola. Credit: Howard Schnapp
For many years, from one election to the next, Nassau County's problems and opportunities seemed immovable and unchanging. Every Halloween deadline for the legislature to approve the county budget meant contending with endless deficits, growing debt and, often, delay.
But the immovable has shifted and the unchangeable has evolved.
Nassau's budget was balanced in 2019 and 2020, even before federal COVID-19 stimulus money and opioid settlement funds began to flow to the county. Debt has not grown over the past couple of years, but it has been refinanced. That means Nassau is paying lower rates on more than $1 billion in loans guaranteed by the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, but will be paying for decades longer. There is an increasingly strong argument that the control period NIFA imposed on the county a decade ago should end soon.
But governing a county that has a chance at success is, in some sense, trickier than running one caught in a spiral of negativity.
With the finances at least temporarily under control, there is an opportunity to address other issues and move the county forward. Fat and unfair fees on real estate paperwork and red-light camera tickets that are already under fire from the courts should end. The phased-in fix of the assessment system that has bedeviled Nassau for decades must be wrestled back on track, then managed with consistent discipline, lest it careen off the tracks again. The county's archaic information technology systems, from its websites and consumer interfaces to the computers in Nassau's Mineola offices, must be modernized. There must be more fairness in how the county builds and cares for its roads and parks and other infrastructure, so that economically challenged communities get the resources wealthier communities take for granted.
And when the booming consumer economy fades, and federal stimulus and opioid settlements wane, Nassau's finances may well revert to deficit disaster, especially if irresponsible decisions are made in the next few years. COVID-19 recovery must continue, and the needs of the county's most vulnerable residents must be met.
Nassau has new opportunities, and new challenges. Here's who we think can best help meet them.
Nassau County Health Commissioner Lawrence Eisenstein testifies before the Nassau County Legislature in Mineola during a hearing on COVID preparedness in March 2020. Credit: Howard Schnapp
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