Unions control Nassau's fate

One way or another, the unionized employees of Nassau County are going to have to start contributing to their medical care, and the considerable overtime, excessive days off and spiraling salaries embedded in the arbitrated contracts of police officers are going to have to be contained. That's the fiscal reality a horrendous economy and exploding pension and health insurance costs have created in a place burdened by taxes among the highest in the nation.

The question is whether the transition will follow a relatively smooth set of negotiations or come after an acrimonious series of expensive court battles or draining legislative fights. Whatever the process, the givebacks must come or the result will be the devastation of county government's core functions. The answer lies in the hands of the four police unions and the Civil Service Employees Association.

County Executive Edward Mangano has released a budget for 2012 based on an analysis commissioned by the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, the state fiscal watchdog. It is balanced only because it includes 710 layoffs and a reorganization of the police department, and requires all employees to pay 25 percent of their own health insurance costs. The majority of these changes, due to the current union contracts, can't be implemented.

Mangano argues that if he can pass a county ordinance empowering him to break the contracts, or get a law passed in Albany supporting his position, he can move forward. The county version would likely have only political value, but a state law declaring an emergency and breaking the contracts might well hold up in court.

Regardless, NIFA and county and state lawmakers should back his position to seek concessions. In the end, if the unions won't come to the table and are victorious in court, their win would cripple the county. NIFA would be forced, by the statute that empowers it, to institute a balanced budget that cuts everything to close a $310-million hole. The unions would destroy the county's budget, annihilate any sympathy the public has for them and likely pay an even higher price when their contracts expire.

In the long run it's unrealistic to believe that a county with ever-increasing expenses can operate with flat property taxes, as Nassau has for years. Increases in line with inflation are often acceptable, and Mangano's abolition of the county's tax on home heating oil in 2010 was a foolish move at a time when economic distress was so clearly coming to county government. But with the economy as it stands, taxes can't be increased right now.

The police union response to Mangano's plan will likely promise an Armageddon of violent crime and neglected needs. And spending reductions this large will indeed have a real effect on county services.

But in Nassau, a police officer with seven years on the job makes more than twice what the average taxpayer does. The county's union employees are among a very tiny percentage of workers in the United States who don't contribute to their health care.

This can't go on. The question is simply how it will come to an end. The unions should come to the table with the right answer.