Madame Presiding Officer, ladies and gentlemen of the Nassau County Legislature; friends and fellow Nassau residents: Good evening and thank you for this opportunity to speak before you tonight about the State of our County, and to present my four-year plan to reform our County government.

On New Year's Day, just three months ago, at my inauguration, I stood before you and said we would solve the county's fiscal crisis. We would dismantle the culture of machine politics. Together we would balance the budget, eliminate the waste, and renew in everyone the spirit and pride of Nassau County. On that day I committed, as I do again tonight, that I would work harder and longer and better, until together, we make Nassau County the Best County in the Country,

I asked for you to join Team Nassau. I told our friends and foes alike…"Either get on board or get out of our way."

As an attorney, Certified Public Account and former Mayor I had prepared, in advance, a program to attack Nassau's financial mess.

But nothing could have prepared me, or the members of my team, for what we found on January 2nd.

A dysfunctional County Government. Broken, battered and neglected - Departments without directors - Agencies without advisors - Commissions without commissioners.

County Offices with leaking roofs, crumbling plaster, ripped and stained carpets.

A Social Services building with hanging wires, cracked windows and peeling paint.

Ventilation panels caked with years of soot. Walls covered with mildew and mold - Scrounged furniture, missing fixtures and rotting tiles and ceiling panels.

Our parks - once the finest in the State - were in an unbelievable state of disrepair, neglected by an administration that divied up your tax monies for political favors instead of investing in the public services that the people of Nassau paid for.

The Old County Courthouse on Franklin Avenue, once a national symbol of civic pride - it appeared in Hollywood movies as the American courthouse - with its majestic dome, built a century ago as our first seat of government, it was allowed to crumble and decay. Today it stands as a symbol of our civic shame.

You would think that with all the money they saved on maintenance, they would have piled up a surplus in the county budget.

In fact, just as with the Enron scandal, a favored few were enriched and the rest of us were left holding the bag.

The more I looked, the more angry I became.

These outward physical signs of a badly broken government were merely a manifestation of a darker, deeper dilemma. The threat of insolvency encircled Mineola. This has happened before in other places - In New York City in the 1970's - In Yonkers and in Philadelphia, in the 1980's and 1990's. It should not have happened here.

Nassau County had been pushed to the brink of bankruptcy, prevented only by the intervention of New York State government money conditioned on the creation of an outside monitor, the Nassau Interim Finance Authority.

It is that Board, NIFA, which has mandated that by today, April first, the County must submit a four-year plan to cure our fiscal woes.

The four-year plan I present to you tonight will do that. But, this plan is more than just a fiscal document mandated by an oversight board.

It is a blueprint, a road map to bring Nassau fiscal stability, managerial renovation and fundamental cultural change in our government - all designed to improve our quality of life.

During last fall's election campaign I detailed a $100 million taxpayers savings plan. That plan is now part of the four-year financial plan I present tonight.

But during the last few months, I have painfully discovered that my $100 million dollar plan fell short of what we actually needed. What we have inherited is the need for a $428 million plan.

$428 million dollars. . . . . . . . That is the amount of the projected annual deficit confirmed by the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, the Nassau County Comptroller and the Independent Budget Office.

To put an annual deficit of $428 million dollars into perspective - a 1% increase in your county property taxes generates only $6 million dollars. To solve this problem by only raising property taxes would require a 70% tax increase. We all know that is unacceptable.

We would obviously have to do more.

For the past 90 days I have directed my team of dedicated experts. Working long hours, we sought to cut the fat from the budget while keeping its heart. We opened every door, and every drawer in every desk. We searched each department for waste and found cost savings and then we looked again . . . and again.

We came up with a plan that was half cuts and half tax increases. But we knew that was not good enough.

We met with union leaders, traveled to Albany and Washington to seek help from our colleagues in government.

We consolidated operations, streamlined procedures, introduced new technology, new systems and processes.

We exhausted remedies, exhausted research and exhausted our staff.

We succeeded. We developed a plan that spreads the responsibility among every member of our team.

It now requires that those who are used to pleading the case for their own narrow interests must put the people's interest first.

Cooperative action for the public good must replace self-promotion at the expense of others.

We must look out for each other as neighbors. We must act as one County, one people, with one future.

Our Four Year Recovery Plan for a Stronger Nassau County has five major elements to eliminate the $428 million dollar annual deficit.

First, we will reduce the workforce by 1,200 people for a savings of $101 million dollars per year- $327 million to go.

Second, we will operate the county more efficiently with smart government initiatives for a savings of $73 million dollars per year - $254 million to go.

Third, we will work with labor to secure concessions for a savings of $65 million per year- $189 million to go.

Fourth, we will reduce, retire, restructure and refinance the county's outrageous debt for a savings of $74 million per year - $115 million to go.

Finally, we will ask County Taxpayers to contribute an average of $226 dollars per household to generate the remaining $115 million dollars.

If we join together, accept our individual responsibility and commit ourselves to the honest hard work necessary to implement every element of this plan Nassau County will once again be financially secure. I know we can do it.

And let me commit to you tonight, if we adopt this plan in its entirety, we will completely solve the financial problem that has plagued this county for years, we will balance the budget, there will be no more job cuts, no more program attacks, no more doom and gloom and no more tax hikes for the rest of my term. We have had this problem hanging over us and weighing us done for too long, lets lift ourselves up and solve it once and for all.

And let's do it now!

These five elements are comprised of $313 million dollars in cuts and smart government initiatives and $115 million from a tax increase.

And here is how we will do it.

The clearest demand from the people has been that we eliminate the government waste, fraud and patronage. Reducing the workforce to the lowest is has been in decades will require all that and more.

When I took office 90 days ago I imposed a hiring freeze. I now, hereby order the reduction of the workforce by 1,200 people from 9,500 employees to 8,300 - a 12.5% reduction. We will implement the reduction as painlessly as possible through an early retirement incentive package, normal attrition and an employee evaluation program.

But let me make this clear - the extent of our deficit is so huge, that if we do not achieve our reduction goal by September of 2003 we will be forced to layoff the remainder.

The reduction plan will be hard. If we reduce the workforce to the lowest it has been in decades and we are to continue to provide services, we must be more efficient, effective and creative. To meet our challenge to save and to serve our employees and managers will truly have to do more with less.

With a reduced workforce, we must continue to patrol the highways and neighborhoods, we must continue to prosecute the wrongdoers, incarcerate the criminals and supervise and surveil the sex offenders and drug dealers on probation.

We must pave the roads, plow the snow, clean the storm drains and once again maintain our parks and recreation centers.

We must, as is mandated by State law and human conscience, care for the mentally ill, feed the impoverished, provide health care for the elderly, speech therapy for children in need, and supervised homes for troubled teenagers whose parents can't control them.

Forty percent of our budget goes to many of these mandated State and Federal health and human services.

Now our eight health and human service agencies, as well as our public safety departments, and every other cluster of related departments, will work together to eliminate redundancy and waste.

If we are to continue to serve with a reduced workforce, then we must direct our limited resources more effectively to the people who need them and not to the administrators who do not.

The second element of the plan is to consolidate, streamline, merge, modernize and implement smart government initiatives. We will change forever the face of bloated bureaucracy.

Our County Government has two million square feet of property sprawled across Nassau. The space grew as the county grew, with no planning, no thought, and no vision of the future.

Consolidation will be the watch-word of our new real estate management department and excess space must be sold. We have already moved out of expensive above-market rental space on Franklin Avenue in Garden City into existing County-owned property. Why would we rent when we own enough of our own property to house our departments?

The same with support services. As but one example, we have lawyers, auto mechanics, building maintainers and human resource personnel spread around in every department all acting independently of each other. They will be consolidated.

And we will save millions by canceling costly contracts with politically connected firms and we will do the work ourselves.

We will bring the County's "stone-age" technology into the 21st Century.

We process over 500,000 Medicaid claims from 60,0000 Medicaid recipients per month. Yet we perform no review. With the help of a $250,000 computer program investment and training of existing staff we can save over $10 million a year rooting fraud, waste and duplication as they do in other municipalities.

We will continue to implement our innovative program of performance evaluation to enhance productivity and morale.

We will reward employees based upon their performance not their political connections.

It doesn't make sense that the most conscientious County worker receives the same reward as the worker who does the least.

When I first became Mayor of Glen Cove, I watched two drivers bring back their garbage trucks to the garage. The first driver parked the truck, hoped in his car and raced home to beat the clock. The second driver stayed behind to wash his truck. It turns out he washed his truck once a week.

Yet both of these workers were treated exactly the same. It didn't make sense. So I rewarded the second driver -- the one who stayed to wash his truck - we had a ceremony, gave him a plaque, a $50 gift certificate and a can of turtle wax so that next time he could wax his truck.

But that was not good enough - so we set up, in conjunction with the labor union an employee evaluation and a merit raise system.

We are going to recognize and reward good performers. And we are going to identify and discipline poor performers.

We want the thousands of County workers who go the extra mile to know that they are valued. And we want the slackers, who have relied on political connections to cover their poor work habits for years to know that they must either improve their performance or recognize its time for them to move on to a new career.

The third element of this plan is labor concessions.

I am a strong supporter of the union movement. I am proud to have received the endorsement of labor in all my electoral contests. I will fight to protect the unions, just as I have fought to achieve a living wage for working people.

I will not allow labor to become a target of my administration. Labor is our partner.

We must all recognize, however, that Nassau County has consistently provided wage increases in excess of inflation and fringe benefits to our employees, especially police, well beyond what most taxpayers receive in the workplace. We can no longer afford to continue on this path.

In fairness and in respect to the collective bargaining process, we do not seek to roll back the wage gains made by union members over the years. But we must persuade our partners in labor, to curb further gains during this critical four-year period so that Nassau can restore its fiscal integrity.

Lately, there has been a healthy debate about excessive compensation in our police department. The public was largely unaware that the average Nassau County police officer made over $101,000 dollars last year and that the average termination payout is over $200,000.

I am happy to pay the police as much as we can afford. They deserve it. Police work is dangerous and complicated and these brave officers serve as our first line of defense against lawlessness and violence.

But we are staring at the barrel of a $428 million deficit.

A freeze in police wages through 2005 will still leave union members ahead of the cost of living from the start of their recent contract. And they would still remain among the nation's highest paid.

I want to make it clear that we are not asking the workingmen and women of this county government to bear an unfair burden. They are not responsible for this crisis. Of this $428 million problem, I am seeking only $30 million in concessions from the top police union. I ask the PBA again, tonight - won't you do your share.

And for those in the PBA who would purposely try and confuse the issue of salaries and wages with the issue of public safety - Let me say. You will fail!

I will never compromise the safety of any police officer or any member of the public to save a few dollars - and even my most vocal critics - in their hearts knows that's true.

I will not be intimidated. I will not stop fighting for the taxpayers of Nassau County even if I am threatened with political attacks or worse.

The fourth element of the four year plan is the restructuring of the County's massive long-term debt.

While debt restructuring is not a glamorous subject, this initiative will save the county $80 million dollars per year.

Nassau County's fiscal irresponsibility has involved borrowing to cover day-to-day expenses -- not just investments for the future like roadways and parkland -- but the everyday business of government.

This kind of mismanagement means that 16 percent of the County's budget goes to paying off past debt, the highest percentage of any county budget in the State of New York. The taxpayers have been supporting a credit card government.

That enormous debt has cursed our credit rating so the County has had to pay higher and higher interest.

Wasted money. Wasted opportunities. Wasted public trust.

Now we are restoring discipline to the budgetary process. We will pay-as-we-go for day-by-day operational expenses, rather than saddling our children and future generations with a mountain of debt.

We will reduce our borrowing. For fiscal year 2003 we will borrow only $70 million for capital projects as compared to $160 million last year.

We will restructure, with the help of bipartisan state legislation, our sewer debt and obtain refinancing from the Environmental Facilities Corporation at a greatly reduced rate.

We will restructure the $1 billion dollar debt we owe as a result of tax rebate claims against the county's outdated and unfair tax assessment system. We will pay off that $1 Billion Dollars in the next 14 years instead of the next 26.

And I pledge that every single dollar raised by the new County Property Tax will be used only to pay off this enormous $1 Billion Dollar Debt.

And as we improve our fiscal behavior -- a process already begun -- we can expect the credit rating agencies to take note.

Finally, the last part of the plan, and the most difficult will be the property tax increase. This increase of $182 dollars for the median household or $226 dollars for the average household represents a 4% increase of your overall taxes because the county portion of your total property taxes is under 20% of the average tax bill.

There is an old saying that goes "you get the government you deserve." Well, no one deserved the government we got in Nassau County the past ten years. No one deserves the government we inherited.

You paid your taxes and had the right to expect the best county government in the country.

We recognize that any tax increase even an average tax increase of $226 is too much for some, especially seniors on a low fixed income.

That is why we have budgeted as part of this plan and we are asking for state approval to exempt seniors earning less than $60,000 a year from this increase. Similar to the NYS star program for low-income seniors we will do everything we can to help seniors remain in their Nassau County homes.

I have tried the very best I could to craft a plan that will finally solve the county's chronic fiscal crisis. I am proud of my team who worked so hard.

I am asking the members of all political parties in this County to support this plan - a plan to solve this problem once and for all.

If this plan is approved by this county legislature, I make you this promise. We will fix it right the first time.

When I report to you on the State of the County next year, the budget will be in balance and our credit rating will be upgraded.

We are going to do what it takes. We will not settle for halfway measures. We will not do the politically expedient.

This is not a popularity contest. I am not focusing so hard on keeping this job that I will forget to do my job. My job is to solve the problem you elected me to solve. I will work at it until it gets done.

You may have seen the study by the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, which concluded that Nassau County was the worst run county in the United States.

What a disgrace! This wonderful, wealthy county, with all of its rich human and natural resources has had the worst county government in America.

My friends, we will work harder and longer and better until we go from worst to first.

I will do my very best and I will try not to let you down.

When I spoke to you on January first, it was the winter of our discontent. It was cold and the days were short and dark. Now on April 1st Spring has arrived. Each day grows warmer, longer and brighter. The sun breaking through, the greening of the earth and the trees, the daffodils and the forsythia remind us that each year, no matter how gray the skies of winter, Nature reawakens with a smile. A spirit of renewal lifts our spirits and resurrects a powerful optimism about the future.

It was on a day such as this - more than a century ago - that a three-foot-long concrete cornerstone was laid at the northeast corner of what would become Nassau County's first courthouse, a few hundred feet from where we gather tonight.

The long blast of a steam whistle greeted the arrival of a carriage holding Nassau County's most famous and beloved resident, escorted to the speaker's platform by the Port Washington Band and the Boys' Brigade of Hempstead.

He was then running for Vice-President of the United States of America, this independent-minded Republican, great conservationist, fearless police commissioner and battler for democracy. After a long struggle against the odds, he had defeated the New York bosses, both Republican and Democratic, and ushered in a new era of good government in New York State.

Governor Theodore Roosevelt took the platform on that day and spoke. "Fundamentally," he said, "the average man must do his part in the work of self-government and make his representatives feel the results he wishes...Free government is not a gift that can be handed out by the celestial powers, but only by hard work under self-government..."

Tonight, in that same spirit, I ask you to join with me in the days and months and years ahead in the difficult task of self-government.

I ask that you think each day about what kind of future we want for our children and grandchildren. I ask that you help restore civic pride to Nassau County.

For if we work together, if we make the sacrifices we must make in the interest of each other, if we care for each other as neighbors, then someday not so far into the future the people of Nassau County will look back on this moment of crisis with pride in their history, with gratitude for what we accomplished.

Someday they will say: This was the turning point, this was the moment when strong men and women turned away from greed and narrow-minded political advantage and brought about a new era of cooperation, of hard work, of service to our community, and of pride in our hometown of Nassau County.

Tonight I ask you to join together in that quest for a brighter future. I know we shall succeed.

Thank you very much and God Bless America.

The Multi-Year Financial Plan An Executive Summary