Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman says the county\u2019s finances are strong enough to end oversight by the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, pointing to a balanced budget for the fourth consecutive year.<\/p>\n
Blakeman argues NIFA\u2019s continued control is no longer necessary, nearly 15 years after the authority took over amid a county financial crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy control Nassau County when it\u2019s no longer necessary?\u201d Blakeman said. \u201cOur fiscal management has been outstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blakeman is calling on NIFA to end its control period, saying the agency costs taxpayers between $2 million and $3 million annually.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have met all of our goals and exceeded them by having surpluses every year without raising taxes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
NIFA declined to speak on camera but sent News 12 a statement saying the decision to end control rests with the governor and the NIFA board. The authority sharply disputed Blakeman\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cCounty Executive Blakeman\u2019s claims regarding his administration\u2019s savings are simply false and it must be held accountable for its management of the county\u2019s finances,\u201d said Richard Kessel, NIFA chairman. \u201cWe have no intention of ending the control period. We are going to be around for a long, long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Blakeman pushed back, saying the county ended the fiscal year with a $15 million surplus and did not use $30 million in reserves that had been planned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman says the county\u2019s finances are strong enough to end oversight by the Nassau…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-193243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-the-bronx","13":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","14":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}