Nassau Dems can't stop an open budget review
For the second time in a week, Nassau Democrats could be primed to launch an assault on good government and the county's charter. This time around, they want to muzzle the legislature's independent office of budget review.
Why should you care?
"He tells it like it is," Gary DelaRaba, head of Nassau's police officers' union, told me yesterday.
The office was created to sift truth from political convenience in assessing how Nassau's government is doing, especially on budgetary matters.
Last Monday, legislators got busted, scheming to sneak a pay raise - after, rather than before, as the charter mandates, the next election.
As the week wore on, Nassau Democratic Party leader Jay Jacobs, County Executive Thomas Suozzi and a gaggle of Democratic legislators also committed themselves to trying to take down budget review director Eric Naughton.
"He's criticized us, but I've got to tell you, [with] the professionalism, the thoroughness of his reports, this guy should be comptroller."
The beef wasn't really with Naughton; it was with an aggressive, independent office that partisans can't control. And that's just how the charter says it's supposed to be.
Not renewing Naughton's contract (which could come as early as today's scheduled legislative meeting) would be one way to change that; they could make a show of searching for the "best-qualified" candidate and then appoint someone less aggressive to the job.
One hint came last week when Jacobs told Newsday: "I don't see what the mad rush is to approve a contract that frankly can be deliberated on a little bit longer while this individual stands as a holdover. I believe the delegation should sit down and hash these things out together."
Forget the words; concentrate on the source and then ask two questions: Why is a political leader talking about a legislative appointment? And why is he insisting that Democrats, with their one-vote majority, decide who gets the spot?
For 12 years, Democrats and Republicans on the legislature voted together on the appointment; it's one of the body's few shows of bipartisanship. Late last week, Republicans stood behind Naughton, while Democrats were split.
Here's how independent Naughton is:
In 2005, the office, under Naughton's leadership, issued an 80-page report on an embarrassing scandal in Suozzi's economic development department, faulting Suozzi himself for creating a flawed management system that allowed spending abuses.
Last year, Naughton gave both Suozzi and Presiding Officer Judy Jacobs an unpleasant surprise by going to the house of a former Nassau University Medical Center board member one afternoon and taking a notarized statement in which she criticized how the hospital was run. This came despite assurances that the hospital was better. A few months later, it was under new leadership.
This year, the office discovered that a proposed law on licensing locksmiths, introduced with much fanfare by Democratic Legis. Jeff Toback, was already on the books. The office also warned about the potential of falling tax revenue and plumbed other soft spots in the county's 2008 budget, at one point cautioning Suozzi against thinking that could result in "fiscal tomfoolery."
"He tells it like it is," Gary DelaRaba, head of Nassau's police officers' union, told me yesterday. "He's criticized us, but I've got to tell you, [with] the professionalism, the thoroughness of his reports, this guy should be comptroller."
"We've got trouble brewing with the budget a few years down the line," said Judy Jacobs, acknowledging that the office has criticized Democrats and Republicans alike. "The office is important and independence is important."
Indeed.
Once upon a time in Nassau, another political party grew strong. In time, everybody pretty much sang the same tune, even on county finances. And we know how that worked out.
Last night, it appeared that Naughton might have the few Democrats he needs today to join Republicans and keep him in the post.
What happens is important. A collapse of an independent budget office would go against the county charter. It could also, however, formally herald the rise of something else.
The Nassau Democratic Party Machine.
Posted Monday, November 19, 2007
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