Op-Ed - Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy

Op-Ed

Legislature Should Adopt My Tough Balanced Budget That Brings Recurring Savings

By Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy

Over the past eight years, I have made the tough decisions effectuating over a hundred million dollars in recurring savings that helped bring about eight consecutive years without a general fund tax increase.  We saved millions by putting our health plan out to competitive bid, civilianizing the police department, replacing highly paid officers with lower paid sheriffs on the highways, requiring the use of generic rather than brand name drugs and shrinking the size of government by approximately 500 employees.  My budgets were balanced, received the highest bond rating in our county’s history, and still our roads were plowed, our parks remained open and our bus routes were actually expanded.   

Over the past several years, we’ve had crushing state mandates, including a doubling of our pension costs and the opening of a new mandated jail, which has made this 2012 budget the toughest of my tenure. Notwithstanding these state mandates and the sluggish economy, the budget still is balanced and once again holds the line on taxes. 

Legislators have claimed that it’s the toughest budget they’ve faced.  They are correct.  They are going to have to bite the bullet and demand, as I have, that employees pick up a share of their health care costs.  Yes, the budget is tough but it’s certainly not unbalanced.

At a recent meeting, some legislators derided my budget saying that layoffs in the public sector would actually hurt the economy.  By that inane logic why don’t we just double the number of county employees and watch the economy grow.  Quite to the contrary, the public sector is too big.  Recoveries come about from private sector jobs.

Requesting that county employees contribute to their health care is not only the fair thing to do for our taxpayers, it also provides savings year after year.  Rather than holding the unions’ feet to the fire and pressuring them to provide these concessions in lieu of the 450 layoffs that would otherwise come about, legislators are promoting one one-shot after another that not only will put the county’s finances in peril, but also sends a message to the unions that there is no need to negotiate because the legislature will bail them out with a quick fix. 

When tobacco revenues were securitized five years ago, they were spread out over five years to provide recurring savings and to wean the county off of this money.  The proposed use of the remaining $33 million tobacco revenues in one year will provide relief in 2012, but will leave the incoming county executive with a nightmare in 2013 when those monies are no longer available.  The same logic applies to using one shots for selling our tax liens, and worse yet, selling the county office buildings and leasing them back from the new owner.  These type of irresponsible recommendations should be rejected out of hand.  Equally alarming is the call by some legislators to empty our remaining $60 million reserve fund as a one shot to fund recurring expenses.  Those reserves are needed for natural disaster emergencies such as Hurricane Irene, as well as maintaining our historically high bond rating. 

Ironically, had the executive branch adopted these easy fixes, legislators would have unquestionably blamed the county executive for taking the easy way out and setting up the new county executive to fail once these one-shots were exhausted.  I rejected these irresponsible measures and instead balanced the budget with the recurring savings including the requirement that county employees contribute to their health care costs.  If they do not, layoffs would ensue.  Either way, we would see savings year after year, a major advantage for an incoming executive.

On the one hand the legislature does not want any recurring savings, yet they call for recurring savings.  The legislature claims that they don’t want one-shots, yet all of their proposals to change the executive budget have been just that – one-shots. 

Sooner or later, the tough decisions will have to be made.  Delaying the inevitable will either lead to large tax hikes or the type of instability other counties are facing, but Suffolk has been able to avoid.