LEGISLATOR SOLAGES ON FUNDING HUMAN SERVICES

All of the money Executive Mangano needs to help Human Services is there already!

(MINEOLA, NY) – It was truly disheartening to watch Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano propose an amendment which aimed to remove dedicated funding of over 50 human service agencies and programs from all across Nassau County, including the Gateway Youth Outreach Program. Nassau County Legislator Carrié Solages believes this was a completely unwarranted political attack, targeting human service agencies and programs, when they only represent 0.15 percent or $4 million of $2.4 billion of the County’s budget for 2012. This scheme against agencies and their programs was purely an administrative decision, affirmed by the majority of the legislature with a 10-9 vote, after weeks of heated debates during legislative sessions, sporadic phone calls, visits by constituents to the legislature and of course, emotional testimonies by County residents during public comments.

Unfortunately, the County Executive has misled these agencies and the public into thinking bonding is the reason why human service agencies no longer will be receiving dedicated funding from the Red Light camera program. Legislator Solages voted against County Executive Mangano’s proposal and is certain that if Mangano chose to, he could and would fund these agencies through various locations in the County budget. Some of these solutions to self-inflicted issues of funding human services the County Executive has identified during legislative sessions are: approximately $13 million in a contingency fund and another $91 million in a non-allocated reserve fund that you could also use to keep these crucial programs alive.

Nassau County Executive Mangano has been using human services as a political pawn for bonding efforts. He can fund human services if he wanted to, without bonding a penny.