Mangano Math

Now that Comptroller Maragos is no longer running for Senate and seems to settle back into his role as Comptroller, we begin to hear next year’s campaign mantra -- blaming NIFA and the minority legislators for this administration’s inability to manage the County’s budget. 

County Executive Mangano and Comptroller Maragos should not underestimate the intelligence of their constituents.  Our memories are not as short as they are hoping. 

I will never forget the conversation I had with Mr. Maragos on June 29th of last year.  Newsday reported that Comptroller Maragos found $9.4 million surplus in the 2010 budget.

"As a result of the County and its various agencies closing their accounting records and completing their audits, net adjustments of $9.4 million were recognized," Maragos said in a statement. Newsday, ”Maragos Ups Nassau’s 2010 budget surplus” ,June 29, 2011.

This was reported on the very same day I watched nine police officers escort desolate county workers out of the County Office Building.  For this was the very same day that the County Executive laid-off 128 people. 

So, in the parking lot, outside of the County Office Building in Mineola, I said to Mr. Maragos, “I read that you found a surplus in the budget.”  Mr. Maragos beamed, “Yes, we did.”  I responded, “So, was all this really necessary?  Did you really have to lay off 128 people today?”  And his response was that the County Executive could use the surplus as he sees fit.

Although I had just finished consoling a friend who worried about how he was going to feed his family, I understood that what Maragos said was true.  It was the County Executive’s choice to do what he wanted with the surplus.

But, what didn’t hit me until a year later was that the $9.4 million surplus that Maragos claimed he suddenly “found” was money that was taken out of the sewer district’s reserves and transferred into the county’s general fund.  As Legislator Dave Denenberg discovered when investigating the County’s financial reports, Mangano Math just did not add up.  We suspected that the County had taken money out of the sewer district to create the illusion of a sewer district that was on the verge of bankruptcy in order to sell the people of a need for privatization. On the other hand, when the County Executive sent out a requestfor an investor, it touted the sewer district as a highly profitable system. Which is it?

According to the Newsday article I read the other day - “Nassau delays closing its 2011 books,” June28, 2010 -

           
“The legislature's independent Office of Budget Review on Wednesday indicated that last year's gap has climbed to$50 million because of a miscalculation of reimbursements from the county sewer authority.”

Is it a coincidence that the County deficit jumped approximately $9 million from $41 million to $50 million because of a “miscalculation?”  Did they delay the closing of the County’s books so that they could “fix the books?” Or were they so inept as to misplace $9 million out of a budget of $160 million or count it for two years’ budgets?  Just who is overseeing this budget?

The Nassau County Sewer and Storm Water Authority

In 2003, the Nassau County Sewer and Storm Water Authority took title of the County’s sewage treatment plants.  It is an authority set up by New York State with seven commissioners appointed by the County Executive, County Comptroller, and the Majority and Minority Legislators to manage the finances of the County’s sewage treatment district.  They also are solely responsible for selling or leasing the plants, but that is another story.  The commissioners are unpaid appointments.

So how could it be that none of the seven commissioners noticed that $9 million out of a $160 million budget was misplaced?  Or is it that, as I suspect, the County Executive had been in office for 2-1/2 years and had not reappointed commissioners to the Sewer Authority until April of this year?  So just who was overseeing the sewer district’s budget? 

Chief Deputy Frank Moroney stated in the Newsday article that the County had hired an outside consultant.  The Newsday Article “Nassau delays closing its 2011 books,” reads:
“As a result of a change in outside consultants this year, we still need additional time to properly reconcile certain balances," Moroney said in a statement.”

What outside consultants?  Why are they hiring “outside consultants” to do the work that the Sewer Authority commissioners were appointed to do for free?  Could it be that Morgan Stanley was their “new consultant?”

There are far too many coincidences and far too many unanswered questions with respect to the Sewer Authority. For this reason, the Nassau County Coalition of Civic Associations wrote a letter to State Comptroller DiNapoli, requesting an audit of the Sewer Authority. They have referred our inquiry to their local offices.

But no matter how you try to spin it, $9million was misplaced.  Numbers don’t lie and Mangano math, once again, just doesn’t add up. And what boggles the mind is that if Legislator Denenberg had not called for an investigation into the financial records of the Sewer Authority, no one would have ever realized that they misplaced $9.4 million of our tax dollars.

No matter how they want to spin it, Mangano and Maragos started their tenure with a balanced budget. Yes, they cut the very unpopular energy tax (which was only temporary and would have been cut by now).  But Mangano was lacking the diplomacy needed to get the cigarette tax enacted that would have balanced the 2010 budget.  And he has yet to come up with a viable idea to bring in the revenue needed to balance the budget.

So when I read Mangano’s 2013 mantra in Newsday that “Democrats created  Nassau’s fiscal mess,” I need to remind Mangano that people are smart.  It wasn’t that long ago. We do remember.