Blakeman tax cut promise made; tax cut promise kept -- on paper

Legislators Debra Mule, Delia De-Riggi Whitton, Siela Bynoe, Carrie Solages, Arnold Drucker

 Nassau Democratic legislators today demanded that Republican Bruce Blakeman deliver an "immediate" tax cut of $128 million in his forthcoming budget -- the tax cut that he promised while campaigning against Democrat incumbent Laura Curran for county executive two years ago.
Bruce Blakeman

 

By county charter, Blakeman, who defeated Curran, must submit his 2024 proposed county budget to the legislature by Friday.

The Democrats cited Blakeman campaign literature in Sept. 2021 in which he said he would cut taxes by over $128 million in a single year.

"However, despite inheriting significant budget surpluses and robust reserves," they said in a press release, Blakeman's 2023 budget "included no tax cut."

That's not true.

Blakeman cut a $35 million property tax increase that Curran had put into this year's budget as part of her multi-year plan. The multi-year plan consists of the coming budget year and the three years after that -- for a four-year budget plan.

The Nassau Interim Finamce Authority, a state board in control of Nassau's finances, has ordered the county to develop and adopt a multi-year plan ever since the state legislature created NIFA in 2000.

Not only must the county legislature adopt the multi-year plan but NIFA also must approve it.

Curran included tax increases in each of the last three years in her last multi-year plan -- for 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Blakeman last year eliminated all of those tax increases, for a total tax reduction of $150 million, according to budget director Andy Persich.

So Blakeman, in fact, cut more than $128 million in taxes in a single year.

Of course those taxes were only on paper.

The three out-years in every multi-year plan for the past 20 years have consisted of fictional spending and revenue -- to satisfy NIFA.

Nassau Republicans made a big deal about Blakeman eliminating the Curran proposed tax increases during last year's budget hearing. They repeated it several times and had budget director Persich repeat it several times, saying there was a $150 million total reduction in taxes proposed by the Curran administration, adopted by the county legislature and approved by NIFA.

So even though taxes didn't go down, they didn't go up as planned.

Maybe the Democrats just weren't listening back then.

 



Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 14, 2023 at 8:25 PM

    There is nothing that allows NIFA to continue to continue to keep the county in a control period. The county should be pursuing litigation

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 14, 2023 at 8:44 PM

    Since when is Chris Boyle allowed to write posts on this blog?

    ReplyDelete

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