State of the County Address

Madame Presiding Officer and Ladies and Gentlemen of the Nassau County Legislature; our honored guest Monsignor Tom Hartman; members of the Wisdom Lane Middle School team; my friends and fellow residents of the great County of Nassau:

We gather this evening in Levittown, the birthplace of the American suburb. We meet to consider the State of our County.

I am happy to report to you tonight, our county has undergone a remarkable financial turnaround over the past three years, and as a result the State of our County is strong!

No longer do we convene in crisis to contemplate our county government's most imminent threat to our survival. Instead we assemble to envision a plan that will ensure that when the fifth graders here at Wisdom Lane Middle School graduate from college they will find their hometown an attractive place for them to return to.

Our County is stronger than it has been in over a decade and we are now prepared to face our future with strength and with confidence.

It is not an easy path that we contemplate this evening.

Tonight, as we plan for what lies ahead, there are three important topics I will touch upon.

First, the biggest issue we face is ever-rising property taxes. School taxes, which make up 65% of the taxes we pay, seem to rise each year. County taxes, which this legislature and I levy, make up another 15% to 20%, and town and village taxes, which make up the remaining 15% to 20%, are together placing an enormous strain on every family. New businesses and young college graduates are discouraged from locating here and the seniors who moved here when suburbia first began fifty or sixty years ago are now house rich, but income poor and are especially hurting. Everything I do as County Executive is guided by a constant thought. "How do we keep property taxes down?"

Second, we need a vision for our future that preserves everything we love about our hometown suburb, but addresses those rising property taxes, the growing traffic and other quality of life concerns - I call that vision New Suburbia.

Third, I want to talk about courage - the courage to recognize our continued need for change.

We must look to the examples of courage that surround us. We must honor it, and embrace it. By honoring and embracing the courage of those we recognize tonight, perhaps we will be inspired to act courageously as we strive to fulfill our duties - duties, that while important and noble, require a small effort when compared to those here before us.

Tonight, we honor the courage of the five Nassau families whose sons made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq. Make no mistake about it. They freed the Shiites and the Kurds from a vicious tyranny that had claimed the lives of more than a million people.

The lines that formed outside the polls on Election Day in Iraq, in the face of harrowing dangers, were the truest testimony that these brave Americans did not die in vain.

Tonight we welcome the parents and families of 4 of these beloved sons of Nassau, Thomas and Jacqueline Kolm, the parents of Corporal Kevin Kolm; William and Angela Lynch, the parents of 1st Lt. Matthew D. Lynch; Agustin and Jeanette Urbina, parents of Specialist Wilfredo Urbina; Leonard Wahl, father of Sgt. Gregory Wahl. To each of you, on behalf of a grateful nation and county, with hearts that are full, we humbly thank you for your sacrifice on our behalf.

Tonight, we also honor the courage of one of Nassau's sons who has devoted his life to others. Now he faces a debilitating disease and in the face of his Parkinson's he has courageously further embraced his mission of service. As his gait slows and his body trembles he has fought to find a cure for the disease he faces as well as the diseases that face millions. Already he has raised millions of dollars for research that he has donated to Michael J. Fox's effort to find a cure for Parkinson's. He has teamed up with Dr. James Watson who discovered the structure of DNA and was the first Nassau County Theodore Roosevelt Award winner. Together they are financing the research at Nassau's Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories that they believe will unlock the secret to curing Parkinson's, and will contribute to the understanding of Alzheimer's, ALS and multiple sclerosis.

Because of his lifetime of service to the poor, the hungry and the sick, because of his shining example of love, gentleness and goodness and because of the courage he now displays and that inspires each of us I am honored tonight, to present the third annual Nassau County Theodore Roosevelt Award to Monsignor Thomas J. Hartman.

Courage is a cardinal tradition of Nassau County. It is symbolized in the county's historic seal. The Nassau lion - the symbol of our courageous county, from the bravery of our warriors in every generation to the wonderful work of Tom Hartman, from the dreams of the Levittown pioneers to the enduring legacy of Nassau own President Theodore Roosevelt, who spoke these words for the ages: "Far better it is," he said, "to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

All of us heard the pessimistic predictions of those "poor spirits" when we undertook, together, the seemingly impossible job of turning Nassau County around, of rescuing our County from boondoggles and bankruptcy, and stabilizing it for the voyage ahead to New Suburbia. There were those that would have you believe that our County symbol was the cowardly lion.

But we heeded Teddy Roosevelt. We turned a deaf ear to those timid souls. We dared mighty things. We have begun to dismantle the culture of machine politics and together we have transformed the government of Nassau County.

Our victory has been hailed -- not by us, but by every independent financial analyst -- as one of America's most dramatic financial turn-arounds.

We have reduced our workforce to the smallest in 30 years.

We fired employees indicted for bribery, for stealing from the county, and for time abuse. We offered an early retirement package and because of a change in the county culture, which now rewards performance and not political connections, we inspired slackers to leave and great employees to excel. Today over a thousand employees who worked for Nassau County the day I took office are no longer employed here.

We have saved, but we also have served. We employed new Smart Government Initiatives. We improved services while cutting an additional $100 million in waste, fraud and abuse.

We have battled powerful forces from here in Mineola to the Capital in Albany

We have saved the Nassau University Medical Center, which faced certain bankruptcy and an uncertain future for its patients.

During this administration we have balanced every County budget.

We have established surpluses every year.

We have built a "rainy day" fund of more than $100 million.

We have cut borrowing in half and achieved the lowest cash flow borrowing in more than a decade.

We have paid off millions in debt early.

And this year we adopted our second consecutive no-tax-increase budget.

Additionally, I pledge to you tonight, I will do everything in my power to deliver to you later this year, a third consecutive, balanced, no gimmicks, no tax increase budget.

That is conservatism in the true sense of that oft-misused word. Each year we have produced a responsible, balanced, conservative budget.

We have received eight bond upgrades, the most of any municipality in our nation within a in a one-and a half year period.

We have gone from what the Maxwell School of Public Policy called "The Worst Run County in the Country" to become the premier county that is now in the spotlight of success.

Recognized, along with Miami and Pittsburgh, as one of the three most dramatic financial turnarounds in the nation, Nassau County now enjoys its highest bond rating in over a decade.

We are now rated in the "A" ranks by Moody's, Fitch and Standard and Poor's for the first time in over 12 years.

This has not been easy. Overcoming the mess we inherited and the exponential growth in mandated expenses has demanded creativity, hard work and tough choices by my top-notch team.

Our team has abandoned the notion that mediocrity is satisfactory and we have sought a new standard of excellence.

The members of that team are all, as President Kennedy once described himself, idealists without illusions.

I want to thank my staff, the department heads, the County employees, presiding Officer Jacobs and the Majority members of the County Legislature, and also the rating agencies, the editorial pages, the labor unions, the business and not-for-profit community and the civic groups that have supported our reforms. Everyone, except those who caused our County's problems in the first place and who continue to try and obstruct our progress, has contributed to this remarkable success.

So much for the laurels. We do not propose to rest on them. Challenges remain to be met. And they will be met, with the same vigor and determination that have marked our efforts from the beginning.

In previous years, our budgets were designed to prevent the County from going under. In the current budget, we are making significant investments to move Nassau forward, to make it better and stronger.

First and foremost, public safety is our paramount priority. Thanks to the finest police department in the United States, Nassau now has the lowest crime rate of any municipality of its size in America.

Our crime rate has continued to decline each year we have been in office and is now the lowest it has been in 30 years.

A low crime rate, however, is small comfort to those who have been victimized by crime. We want to do better and we will do better. Pursuant to Police Commissioner Jim Lawrence's recommendations, we implemented the following:

Two weeks ago we graduated the largest class of police cadets in over 10 years and last Friday swore in another 142 new recruits, the two largest consecutive classes in over a decade. Were it not for our new fiscal stability and new labor contracts we could not have afforded such hiring. Our commitment to public safety will never be compromised.

Fortunately, gang incidents continue to decline, but the need for an aggressive gang reduction program continues.

I have appointed the veteran Police Inspector Bob Turk to a new post as chair of the County Task Force Against Gangs. Our task force is a government-community partnership established to coordinate Nassau's anti-gang strategies which combine tough law enforcement and smart social work. Inspector Turk is coordinating efforts by law enforcement agencies at the local, State and Federal level, as well as school districts, youth boards, community based organizations and clergy members. We need to continue to protect our residents and save those young people who are lured by the senseless destructive gang lifestyle.

Our residents need and deserve first-rate law enforcement.

They also deserve a first-rate parks system.

One of Nassau's strongest attractions for families has been our 6,000 acres of once-beautiful parks, beaches, preserves, museums, ice rinks, golf courses, playgrounds and other athletic and recreational facilities.

Under preceding administrations, maintenance was cut and the parks were allowed to deteriorate.

In January of this year I kicked off our "Nassau County Parks Are Making a Comeback Campaign." By combining a dramatic restructuring of our management organization, by committing millions of dollars in new investment, by implementing a new inspection program and with a focus on sound environmental policies and family fun I am pledging a visibly improved and fully functional parks system by May 31st of this year.

Our parks team is literally one-third its size of fifteen years ago, but by reducing bureaucracy, increasing accountability, and measuring results we have begun a dramatic transformation of our major facilities.

From new benches and barbeques, to new irrigation systems and sidewalks, to new playing fields and playgrounds we are working hard to fix the parks just as we fixed the County's broken finances.

We will also continue to act on our commitment to protect the divine creation of our environment. In addition to restoring and improving our parks:

We have appointed a new Director of Environmental Coordination to establish a consistent strategy, using existing staff, to secure open space, conserve and produce energy, protect our waterways, manage storm water, control traffic and ensure a safe and healthy future for the next generation.

We are using $50 million dollars from the Environmental Bond Act to preserve open space and our few remaining farmlands, to protect and purify our drinking water and to safeguard our bays and harbors.

Our lives our better, our bodies are healthier and our souls are deeper when enhanced by a connection to clean air, land and water. We will always protect them.

It is important to note here tonight that we have come a long way from the days when families of color were excluded from purchasing a home here in Levittown, but we have more work to do to strengthen and assist the minority members of our county. In particular:

Most exciting of all our initiatives is our "No Wrong Door" program designed to provide better Health and Human Services to county residents at a lower cost. That's right better service at a lower cost. By consolidating separate agencies that once never communicated into one location, by sharing support services, and by creating communication and technology links from department to department we can help people get the relief they need and thereby also reduce costs. Starting late this summer, no longer will HHS clients go from one County government door to another and get lost in a maze of bureaucracy.

We believe that the No Wrong Door program, which is innovative, compassionate and smart, will serve as a national model for the delivery of Health and Human Services. Of all the things our fiscal stability has inspired this may actually impact the most people and the people most in need.

Despite this small sampling of achievements I have cited, expenses continue to rise. While salaries in 2004 were, due to our staff reductions, $40 million less than the day I took office, State mandated Medicaid expenses are $90 million more than the day I took office. Other State mandates that Albany pushes down on the local taxpayer, skyrocketing health insurance and pension costs as well as utilities and other costs continue their dangerous climb.

Property taxes have reached damaging levels.

As I mentioned earlier County property taxes make up a relatively small portion of these taxes and we have managed to keep them stable. School property taxes, however, which are beyond county control and account for nearly two-thirds of the tax burden, continue to rise.

I would like to share with you a story - a Levittown story.

More than a half-century ago, William Levitt and his sons announced their plan to build 2,000 homes for returning veterans.

One of those homes was purchased by my good friend Charlie Wilson and his wife Helen who are here with us tonight. Charlie is a Korean War veteran who works part-time at the Levittown American Legion. He is 73 years old and Helen admits to being 39.

Charlie and Helen had eight children in the 1960's. In those days there were babies everywhere, toddlers and teenagers abounded. 40 percent of Long Island residents were under the age of 21.

Charlie Wilson was a New York City fireman. Like him, most of the GI homeowners settled into steady jobs. Many took the Long Island Railroad to work. Thousands worked at Grumman.

The County grew from 400,000 residents in 1950 to 1.2 million in 1960 to 1.5 million in the 1970's. Everywhere you looked there was new construction, new schools, new developments. We were the fastest growing county in the nation with a rapidly expanding property tax base and record growth in new homes and commercial construction that filled the municipal coffers with the resources to finance new parks and services.

Today, we still believe that Nassau County is a wonderful place to live, work and play. Charlie and Helen's children, their spouses and 23 grandchildren all stayed here -- three families here in Levittown, three in Wantagh, one in Garden City -- and one out in Smithtown -- hey, nobody's perfect.

They love it here, just as you and I do. They want their neighborhoods to remain single-family homes with baseball fields down the street, a safe environment to raise children.

But how will Charlie Wilson continue to pay his taxes if they keep going up and his income doesn't? And will his children stay here in Nassau County or move away as have thousands of young wage earners? High property taxes are the biggest problem on Long Island.

There are five reasons that taxes are so high here on Long Island. Each requires a strategy to address it.

The first cause for high Long Island taxes is the sordid legacy of mismanagement. Most of my time as County Executive has focused on cleaning up the now too familiar mess we inherited in Mineola. We have succeeded, but what about the school districts now under State audit? More than $11 million of the taxpayers' money is missing in the Roslyn School District alone. The William Floyd School District in Suffolk. The Town of Brookhaven scandals. And there is more to come. No wonder 82% of Long Islanders, according to the Long Island Index, have little trust in government.

Here in Nassau a series of management tools have all been designed around our core principal "reduce bureaucracy and increase accountability." Employee evaluations designed to reward performance not political connections; the relentless pursuit of excellence by measuring everything from crime statistics to Medicaid application backlogs has provided objective data to hold managers accountable to measured goals; and the creation of a new Deputy County Executive for Compliance to ensure the implementation of internal controls and processes and procedures to ensure that our $2.4 billion organization is run like a $2.4 billion organization.

Mismanagement is the most aggravating and the most readily corrected problem we face. Each of these management techniques that have helped us clean up the mess in Mineola can serve as a model for other government organizations.

The second cause of our high taxes are the expenses pushed down on us from the State of New York. It turns out that according to the Citizen's Budget Commission that local taxes in New York State are 72% above the national average - the highest local taxes in the nation. The next highest State is 20% above the national average. You may now be familiar with my Fix Albany Campaign and my efforts as the President of the New York State County Executive's Association. I have been traveling around the State with my fellow County executives both Democrats and Republicans calling on the Governor, State Senate and Assembly to cap the local share of Medicaid costs. We will be holding a rally on March 21st at the Cradle of Aviation to demand a stop in the out of control spending the State is forcing our counties to pay for. In Oneida County they just raised their sales tax to 9 and 3/4%. In Erie County they just laid off 2000 employees and are shutting down basic County services. The average tax increase in Counties throughout the State over the past two years has been 20% and 5 counties have almost reached their constitutional taxing limit. Albany is responsible for many of the property taxes you pay and I am asking you to join with me in holding them accountable.

The third cause for high property taxes on Long Island is that we have a great deal of government. Nassau is an intricate spider web of costly, complicated, conflicting, often competing governments, including three towns, two cities, 64 villages, 68 unincorporated areas, 58 school districts, 71 fire districts, 24 garbage districts, 36 water districts, 26 park districts, 20 parking districts even multiple sewer, lighting, drainage and sidewalk districts - literally hundreds of taxing jurisdictions. All this government costs money. We have begun to consolidate some of the management of roads and parks with local towns and villages, but much more needs to be done. I want to commend County Assessor Harvey Levinson for the work he has begun, to expose some of the "invisible governments" that are imposing taxes with little or no oversight. For example in Baldwin, the tax in one garbage district is twice as large as the taxes in the district across the street. I have asked Harvey to study these districts in detail and to report back to me over the next six months as to how we can make some sense of this mess.

Fourth, we here on Long island are literally paying $3 billion more in State and $3 billion more in Federal income taxes than we get back in Albany and Washington aid. And while we subsidize the rest of the state and nation with our income tax dollars, we are forced to pay high property taxes for the mandated expenses that Albany and Washington push down on our shoulders. Comptroller Howard Weitzman has begun to investigate these inequities. He notes that for years we assumed our extremely high school taxes reflected primarily our desire to pass school budgets to maintain our quality schools. Comptroller Weitzman recently conducted a study, however, that found that our residents receive less State aid than comparable communities with similar incomes and school spending. He will continue his study and propose to me by the end of this year ideas as to how we can address this unfair situation. In the meanwhile we will continue to lobby our State and Federal officials to help us get our fair share of state and federal dollars.

The fifth reason for high taxes in Nassau -- a central reason too often overlooked -- is that we have stopped growing. America's first suburb has reached middle-age. We now have little open space left to grow and we want to preserve what we have left. Meanwhile, traffic worsens and under current zoning laws we can't redevelop those places that could sustain more density.

With no new construction or new business, with rising expenses and a flat tax base, local government will be forced to raise property taxes even further or dramatically cut existing services.

Nassau County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi honors the recipient of the third annual Nassau County Theodore Roosevelt Award for Achievement, Monsignor Thomas J. Hartman, for his work raising awareness and millions of dollars for research to find a cure for Parkinson ’s disease

To continue on that course would be a catastrophe for Nassau. It would mean not simply no new business, but a loss of business and a shrinking tax base to pay higher and higher taxes. It would mean the destruction of the suburban dream that began here in Levittown for the Wilson family and so many others.

We must have a new vision for growth, a vision that preserves our existing single family neighborhoods and open spaces, that is not afraid to tackle our growing traffic concerns, and that targets new growth in traditional downtowns, on brownfields, in emerging minority communities and in the Nassau HUB.

For a quarter-century the center of our County has been disjointed. In January I laid out my vision for the Nassau Centre at the Hub with:

This vision of the Nassau Centre and New Suburbia would help stabilize and reduce property taxes and preserve our quality of life for the long-term.

In April I will hold a Housing Summit with our Village Mayors and Town Supervisors with the help of the Nassau County Planning Federation. At that time we will lay out our goals for Next Generation homes over the next five years. In addition to the several hundred new homes we now participate in each year, we will propose a comprehensive plan of new home construction, sponsored by employers and with community partnerships, new ideas and funding to make existing homes affordable, and the rehabilitation and upgrade of currently affordable homes that will enhance and uplift neighborhoods.

Furthermore, this summer I will lay out our master plan for the future development of all of Nassau. This master plan will combine our broad vision for New Suburbia combined with specific plans and ideas gathered community by community at 35 town meetings conducted over a two year period. The plan will pay special attention to the preferences proposed by local residents and officials.

The old suburbia that began here in Levittown still has much to recommend it. It has served us well for half a century.

Now we must look ahead to the next half-century. Targeted smart growth that expands our tax base will benefit all of Nassau's residents. Instead of assaulting our last acres of open space, we must focus on recycling no-longer-productive and underproductive properties.

For too long we have been playing defense - simply hanging on to the memories of the good old days, wishing and hoping that we don't lose them. I loved growing up here in Nassau and I, like you, cherish those more simple times when the biggest concern was getting home before the street light came on. But it is time to start playing offence. We must start planning for a better, improved tomorrow that keeps the best of suburbia and addresses the problems we face today.

If we do nothing and stick with the status quo - taxes will continue to rise, traffic will continue to worsen and young people will continue to leave. The status quo is unacceptable.

Tonight we begin to build a consensus on where we want to go as a community. The plan that I call New Suburbia seeks to preserve Charlie Wilson's neighborhood here in Levittown and his children's homes in Wantagh and Garden City and your neighborhood. New Suburbia is an idea that marries the old dream of the white picket fence, the single family home, Little League, low crime and high employment with a new vision for growth in targeted areas which creates high-paying jobs that improve our quality of life, pay for government services, strengthen our tax base and ultimately reduce traffic congestion.

The vision of a New Suburbia will not be realized this year or next year or the year after that. We are laying out an action plan for the next decade.

But we must begin tonight.

Many good friends and advisors asked me to adopt a more cautious tone tonight - to play it safe and not talk about new ideas for the future.

I had to disagree. I do disagree. I, along with most of the members of my team, chose government and politics to change things, to shake it up, to try and make peoples lives better and to help those most in need.

I understand the advice I received. We probably could safely rest on the achievements of this administration. We have done wonderful work here: Nassau County is back in business, moving in the right direction. We brought fiscal health back to Mineola, saved hundreds of millions of tax dollars, kept crime rates at record lows, changed the corrupt culture of a county government consumed by machine politics and we have delivered 2 and hopefully, 3, consecutive years of no tax increases. We have exceeded our highest expectations.

But, there are problems still to be solved, economic threats to our future, and the road ahead is still filled with uncertainty.

We will challenge the problems of young families leaving Long Island. We will help build housing they can afford.

We will develop sensible plans for the Hub. For 30 years, everyone has talked about the Hub, but no one has done anything about it. We will.

We will fight the battle to preserve suburbia. We won't ignore growing traffic-jams, we will fight unplanned overdevelopment, and we won't turn away from the problems of troubled downtowns.

Attention will be paid to the county's minority neighborhoods. We will help these communities build a stronger economic foundation, encourage new business development and enhanced employment opportunities.

And, we will continue to shrink county government, to consolidate wherever we can; to streamline the delivery of services.

I will not play it safe. I can not. I cannot stand before you and speak of the courage of our honorees and then take the easy road. There's too much at stake, too much to do.

I recognize that there are those that will resort to any distortion and any method, no matter how unfair or unsavory, to protect the status quo and their interest in it.

I recognize that the job that lies ahead may seem more than our abilities can accomplish.

Robert F. Kennedy once said that:

And it is the only way that I can govern. It is the work of our own hands and the courage to do it that will shape our destiny. We are fulfilling the pledge made to the people of Nassau when we first took office. We are facing what needs to be faced and fixing what needs to be fixed.

We are restoring not only crumbling buildings, neglected programs and broken finances. We are working to restore pride in Nassau County, confidence in its government and hope for its future.

Tonight, I reaffirm our commitment to our bright future, to continued accomplishment that will lead us from the dark days of the past into the sunshine. As you and I embark on that journey together, I promise to work even harder, longer and better everyday.

Together, with the work of our own hands, and inspired by the courage that surrounds us, we will build a New Suburbia right here in our hometown - Nassau County - the best county in the country.

County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi

2005 State of the County Address