Suozzi Announces New Study That Finds Confusing ‘Crazy Quilt’ of Special District Election Dates

-- Haphazard Schedule Leads to Low Voter Turnout and Scant Accountability; Suozzi Call for Consolidation of Election Dates

Mineola, NY – Nassau County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi today announced a new County study that shows elections for water, sanitary and library special districts are held in Nassau County an average of once every 10.9 business days.

The “Special District Election Date Study: A Crazy Quilt” also found that there is at least one special district election scheduled in 11 out of 12 months of this year, and there are as many as 6 in a single month. In total, there are at least 24 different days on which special district elections are being held. Of those, not a single one is held on Election Day, Nov. 2, when voter turnout is typically highest. Further, the study found that several of these 71 special districts could not be reached, or did not have complete election information or refused to give the information.

The scattershot schedule results in scant voter turnout – sometimes as low as 1.8% – which, in turn, leads to diminished accountability of these mini-governments that rely on taxpayer money. As a result, Suozzi is calling on the special districts to consolidate all their elections dates over two days – in May when school district elections are held and in November during the general election.

“Voters often don’t know when these elections are held – or even that elections are taking place at all,” Suozzi said. “This crazy quilt of a schedule allows these districts to essentially operate in the shadows, hidden from voter scrutiny. Consolidating election dates into two days will shine a light on the whole process. It will spur voter participation, increase accountability and ensure taxpayer money is being spent wisely.”

Special district election voter turnout has been extremely low. Turnout in four sanitary district elections in 2002 was no higher than 3% of the voting population, and as low as 1.8%, according to a 2002 audit by Nassau County Comptroller Howard Weitzman. And a mere 14 votes were cast in one 2002 special district election. In the 2002 gubernatorial election held on Election Day, by contrast, voter turnout was 44%.

“Elections are the source of accountability in democratic institutions,” Suozzi said. “It is the responsibility of governments to hold their elections on dates that are conducive to public participation.”

As part of the study, the County created a calendar with election information for sanitary, water and library districts – as well as village and County election dates – to be posted on the County website. However, the calendar does not include election dates for 8 of the 71 special districts studied. These eight were unreachable despite repeated attempts to contact them, or they had not yet set their elections dates.

Suozzi’s office attempted to contact 71 water, sanitary and library districts to gather election information:

• Of those, 63 were available to give exact election dates.
• Three sanitary districts – District 14 in Hempstead, Glenwood and Syosset – neither answered their phones nor returned repeated messages over the course of two weeks, even though each of these districts was called on multiple days at different times.
• Four water districts –Jericho, Port Washington, West Hempstead-Hempstead Gardens, Westbury – claimed they hadn’t yet set their election dates.

Additionally, there were two other commission-run taxing water districts for which the County could find no contact or any other information. These additional taxing water districts are Bethpage & Extension and Garden City South-Cathedral Gardens. The County learned of their existence through various official listings, but was unable to find any other information about them.

Suozzi has pledged to make government consolidation a top priority for the remainder of his term, as a way to cut taxes and increase efficiency. He last month issued an RFP to consulting firms to come up with a detailed blueprint to reduce the size of government by consolidating the functions of local government entities. Hundreds of special districts in Nassau levied more than $489,000,000 in taxes in 2007, and were responsible for nearly ten percent of all of Nassau’s property taxes.

“Property taxes have reached damaging levels,” Suozzi said. “Mismanagement is the most aggravating and the most readily corrected problem we face. Each of the management techniques that have helped us clean up the mess in Mineola can serve as a model for other government organizations.

An important first step, Suozzi added, is to make election information about special districts more accessible to taxpayers.