March 13, 2007

WEITZMAN COMMENDS SUOZZI ON DECISION TO FOCUS ATTENTION ON SPECIAL DISTRICTS

In response to County Executive Suozzi’s initiative to begin a planning process for the consolidation of as many as 300 special districts in Nassau County, Nassau County Comptroller Howard S. Weitzman issued the following statement:

“I congratulate County Executive Tom Suozzi on his intention to focus on a major source of high taxes and government waste in Nassau County - the proliferation of hundreds of special taxing districts that operate as veritable hidden governments. This area is one of the major contributors to high property taxes in Nassau County, and is long overdue for a disciplined serious review with the goal of eliminating waste and duplication, including consolidating those jurisdictions that can be consolidated without diminishing services.

“I’m grateful that Tom has supported the initiatives of the Comptroller’s Office in this area since the fall of 2005 when we released the first in a series of audits of commissioner-run sanitary districts throughout the county. The audits displayed in dramatic fashion the wasteful practices and self-serving nature of some of these unsupervised bureaucracies. Tom spoke at the June 2006 conference on Special Districts at Hofstra University, which we organized to help bring more public attention to the problem. The most significant step in the reform of special districts occurred two months ago when Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray, reversing her previous position, decided to join with her counterparts in the Towns of Oyster Bay and North Hempstead, John Venditto and Jon Kaiman, and agreed to begin exercising her legal right to review the annual proposed budgets of commissioner-run districts in her town, just as all three supervisors review spending plans by town departments under their direct control.

“Our own initiatives in this area continue, with audits in the works on special water districts, and a study under way on cost disparities throughout Nassau for similar services. We stand ready to assist the County Executive with his proposed study of solutions to waste and mismanagement by special districts with all the resources at our disposal.”