Democratic Nassau County legislators and Nassau County Edward Mangano engaged in a heated war of words last week over cuts in county funding to dozens of local Youth Board contracts while the not-for-profits scrambled to prepare for cuts of up to $246,000 in two days.
In a news conference outside county offices Monday, the Democratic legislators blasted Mangano for the cuts, saying that they were politically driven and possibly illegal.
“I am deeply troubled by the inequities contained in Mangano’s cuts,” said Nassau County Legislator Kevan Abrahams (D-Hempstead). “The cuts hit hardest on communities that are within legislative districts represented by Democrats…. I am disgusted that Mr. Mangano would use children to in an attempt to undermine Democratic elected officials.”
Nassau County Legislator David Denenberg (D-Merrick) called Mangano’s cuts “illegal” and “discriminatory.”
At the conference, the Democrats displayed a chart outlining a list of cuts to the Youth Board contracts totaling $1.8 million, which were broken down by legislator districts represented by Republicans and Democrats. The chart showed that cuts to youth boards represented by Republican county legislators amounted to 9.81 percent of the total, while the cuts to Youth Programs in Democratic districts totalled 83.36 percent.
Democratic legislators also said the cuts may violate the county red-light camera law. The law, according to the Democrats, stipulates that all revenue generated from violators shall be placed in a special revenue fund, used to fund various social service agencies including Youth Board agencies.
The legislators said Mangano would be violating the law’s requirement that the funding of Youth Board agencies must be maintained at $6.2 million.
Mangano said in a statement issued by his office that the Democrat’s list of cuts was “far from accurate.”
“The list will not be finalized until April 16,” Mangano said. “I am working with our state legislators to ensure that the red light camera bill is enacted in order to restore most if not all the funding to our youth board contracts.”
In certified letters sent by the county dated March 29, Youth Board agencies were given cuts to their county contracts that would take effect on April 1.
“Although County Executive Mangano worked diligently to protect services deemed worthwhile and valuable, circumstances surrounding Nassau County’s finances have changed,” the letter said,
The letter went on to blame county Democrats for the cuts.
“The severity of these cuts may have been avoided with Democrat cooperation,” the letter said.
The letter ended by directing agencies to return a revised 2011 budget with the inclusion of the budget reduction, no later than March 31.
Among the agencies effected by the cuts was the Manhasset/Great Neck Economic Opportunity Council, which runs the Hagedorn Community Center in Manhasset.
“I received a certified letter on the 29th from the Nassau County Youth Board informing us that our budget had been reduced from $101,429 to $33,810, effective April 1,” said Maria Cuadra, executive director of Manhasset/Great Neck Economic Opportunities Council.
The Manhasset/Great Neck council works with economically disadvantaged families, providing programs such as after school homework and tutoring, full day summer programs, family support programs, career resource centers and a full year head start program.
Cuadra said the council had announced it would furlough the staff of all its youth program employees except its director beginning April 8 since their salaries were paid for by the county.
“The youth director and I agreed to take pay cuts to help the budget,” said Cuadra. “But we obviously can’t run a youth program with one employee.”
County officials said the cutbacks could be unnecessary.
Chief Deputy County Executive Robert Walker said the letters to the youth agencies “were mostly an FYI” on what could happen.
Walker said he held conference calls with youth organizations on Friday, telling them the cuts wouldn’t occur if the state approves the county’s request to expand it’s red-light camera program.
Cuadra said she heard others had been called, but said she had not received a call to clarify the situation.
“Funding received as a result of red light camera infractions has been and will continue to be utilized to fund youth contracts,” Katie Grilli-Robles, Mangano’s press secretary, said in a statement after the Democrats’ press conference. “As for the list of so called Republican versus Democrat proposed Youth Board cuts that was manufactured by the Democratic caucus, you will see that both Democrat districts and Republican districts receive nearly the same amount of funding.”
Grilli-Robles slammed Denenberg’s remarks, saying, “Denenberg’s insinuations are sickening and meant only to be inflammatory so he can exploit this very serious issue in order to garner media attention for himself. He is simply a disgrace.”
Agencies including EOC are still working to make budget adjustments, based on the impression that budget decreases were to take effect on April 1.
EOC is working with Nassau Legislator Judy Bosworth (D-Great Neck) to help recover the funds, according to Caudra.
“We are virtually shut down,” Caudra said. “We are in the process of direct mail campaign to raise funds, but its not easy to replace that much money that quickly.”
