Nassau Ends 2023 with a Surplus and Lower Liabilities
The Nassau County Comptroller’s Office is pleased to announce that after paying down more than $400 million in major liabilities in 2023, the County ended the year with a surplus of almost $19.6 million in the five major funds (on a GAAP basis*).
In addition to paying annual liabilities such as pension contributions and Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEBs), Nassau County’s administration used reserves to:
- Pay down $137 million in tax certiorari liabilities,
- Pay down $70 million in general litigation and
- Set aside $97 million to pay outstanding bonds.
In addition, the administration paid off the remaining balance of almost $30 million in deferred pension contributions after years of payment deferrals by previous administrations. This brought the County’s pension obligations current for the first time in over a decade.
Also in 2023, the County successfully negotiated new collective bargaining agreements with three employee unions, all of which had expired in 2018. As a result, $33.6 million in retroactive pay was distributed to Police Benevolent Association (PBA) members, and $66 million was set aside for retroactive compensation for members of the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) and Correction Officers Benevolent Association (COBA).
Nassau’s bond ratings are at their highest levels in more than 30 years, with upgrades from S&P, Fitch and Moody’s this year.
 *Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) for governments, as promulgated by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB).
New Union Contracts
Recently, the Nassau County administration signed a new collecting bargaining agreement (CBA) for Nassau County’s Investigators Police Benevolent Association (IPBA). This followed a new contract for Nassau Community College Full-time Faculty/NCCFT) in January, and three new union contracts negotiated by this administration in 2023 – Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) Local 830, the Correction Officers Benevolent Association (COBA), and the Police Benevolent Association (PBA).
Several of these unions have been without a contract going back as far as 2018. It’s a notable accomplishment that the current administration has successfully negotiated five overdue union contracts in the past 16 months.
Once the agreements have all the necessary approvals, members of the Comptroller’s Office work closely with the County’s Offices of Human Resources and Information Technology to calculate and adjust compensation rates and deliver retroactive pay increases and other benefits to the affected employees, as stipulated in the contracts. These employee-specific computations, which are increasingly complicated when years have passed since the previous contract expired, are carried out over hundreds of hours by our very own CSEA employees.
This work is ongoing, in addition to the processing of four payroll cycles (full-time, part-time, partial pay and supplemental) every two weeks for 10,500 employees and administration of benefits for over 8,100 eligible employees, 12,500 retirees and 21,800 dependents for a total of over 42,000 individuals.
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Living Wage Review
Earlier this month, our office completed a review of a non-profit organization that provides essential services to Nassau County residents. The purpose of the review was to determine whether the organization was complying with the Nassau County Living Wage Law, which requires service contractors and lessees that do business with Nassau County to pay a stipulated Living Wage, including a health benefit supplement for employees who do not receive health insurance through the employer. In addition, it requires covered employers to provide employees with paid time off.
The review found that while the organization paid employees an hourly wage rate higher than the required Living Wage, the organization did not pay all eligible employees the required health benefit supplement and did not provide the required minimum number of compensated days off.
As a result of the Comptroller’s Office detailed review, the organization will pay 68 employees a total of $32,033 of compensation owed to them.
This is an excellent example of the audit function of the Comptroller’s office: not only to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse but to ensure that agencies that do business with Nassau County are operating in compliance with Nassau County policies, while providing much needed services to our residents. Read the full report here.
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Freeport's Nautical Mile is Open for Summer!
On June 1st, a beautiful sunny Saturday, we kicked off the unofficial start of summer at the Freeport Nautical Mile 37th Annual Festival! The festival supported by Village of Freeport Mayor Robert Kennedy, the Freeport Recreation Center, and the Freeport Chamber of Commerce, welcomed street vendors and residents from across Long Island for an exciting and fun community event. Thank you to Mayor Kennedy and the Chamber for hosting this family-friendly gathering to support our small enterprises, which are so crucial to our local economy.
Fast Fact: Did you know that Nassau County is home to 45,000 small businesses?
Honoring our Hometown Heroes
Since 2018, the Franklin Square Civic Association has honored our local hometown heroes, our first responders, and health care workers at a ceremony at the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post #2718 in Franklin Square. The ceremony celebrates and pays respect to veterans and first responders living or deceased, who served our community or our nation.
This year, I attended the ceremony honoring 15 heroes, including New York City Police Detective Jonathan Diller who made the ultimate sacrifice in March of this year and Nassau County Legislator John Giuffre's father John B. Giuffre and father-in-law Paul H. Dippel who served in the United States Armed Forces.
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