nassau otb cannot close on roman catholic easter Sunday in preference to ortodox easter sunday. what a novel concept.
Beneath the protective order in the below case is enough information to appall your study of cash flow and make preet drool and foam at tbe mouth as he dispenses infictments
Butler v. Nassau Regional Off-Track Betting Corporation et al. Federal Civil Lawsuit New York Eastern District Court, ...
Do not forget that two cousins beats three mexicans
you have also failed to address kevin mcaffrey's action s with respect to nassau otb.
Perhaps you are just slow?
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On The Right: Nassau County’s latest fiscal follies
George J. Marlin
Posted: Thursday, April 28, 2016 11:45 am
Nassau County’s 2015 operating budget incurred a statutory Generally Accepted Accounting Principles deficit of approximately $105 million.
This means spending was significantly higher than total revenues — property taxes, sales taxes, fees, fines — collected by the county.
Running up a large annual deficit is nothing new in Nassau.
The Mangano administration has spent more than it has taken in since it took control of County Hall in January 2010. That’s why the state oversight board, Nassau County Interim Finance Authority, unanimously voted a motion to invoke a control period in 2011.
What is also not new is the County’s annual claim, when it releases its unaudited financial findings, that it has achieved a surplus.
This year was no different.
On April 19, the County Comptroller’s Office announced that on a “budgetary basis (not GAAP) the County ended 2015 with an estimated surplus in the primary funds of $58.2 million.”
How can this be you ask?
Simple: $123 million of operating expenses were paid with borrowed money.
Current expenses were funded with proceeds from long-term bonded debt that will be paid off by the children and grandchildren of today’s taxpayers.
To add to this fiscal insanity, Nassau County Executive Mangano put out a self-congratulatory statement: “We have a $58 million budget surplus because of good management throughout the year that addressed a sales tax shortfall and still ended the year in budgetary surplus.”
After six years in office, Mangano still hasn’t learned that borrowed money isn’t budgetary revenue.
And as a result of his inability to come to grips with that reality, NIFA has projected annual GAAP deficits for years to come, although, as I have noted before, there was a plan in place to provide for GAAP balance — one which was abandoned by the county with the misguided approval of NIFA.
I should point out that in Comptroller’s Maragos’ press releasing hailing the illusionary surplus he made this milquetoast statement, “The use of borrowing to fund the County’s operations and boost reserves cannot be condoned.”
Well, that’s like the captain of the sinking Titanic saying “hitting icebergs cannot be condoned.”
The county comptroller should be the taxpayers’ champion. He should be banging the pots and pans denouncing Mangano’s fiscal shell games, not enabling him by proclaiming a “budgetary surplus,” which is contrary to the state law that mandates Nassau County to report its finances according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles — and to balance its budget accordingly.
As for fiscal 2016, expect the county’s financial position to continue to deteriorate despite higher than projected first quarter sales tax receipts.
There are two problems on the horizon that will further impair Nassau’s 2016 budget: The Albany casino gambling deal and the county’s settlement with Oyster Bay Township of the 15-year dispute over the town garbage districts property tax assessments.
Because Nassau residents have made it clear they don’t want a casino in their county, the state budget includes language that permits Nassau’s OTB to transfer its right to operate 1,000 slot machines to Resorts World at Aqueduct Raceway.
In return, the OTB will receive $9 million annually during the first two years of operations and $25 million per year, thereafter.
The glitch in this deal: The revenue from Resorts World will not go directly to the county’s coffers but to the debt ridden Nassau OTB, which recently defaulted on a $3 million short-term note payment to the investment banking firm, Roosevelt and Cross.
The county, which budgeted $20 million of revenue from slot machines, is expected to receive no more than $3 to $6 million from OTB this year.
This means its operating deficit will increase up to $15 million plus.
The county’s tentative tax dispute settlement with financially-strapped Town of Oyster Bay is a double-edged sword.
Agreeing to pay $26.7 million to the township instead of the $37 million legal judgment that was potentially owed is not a bad deal.
However, the first installment of $13 million the county will remit this year is not in the budget.
This means the projected deficit will grow by at least another $13 million, and perhaps another $26 million should the settlement require GAAP accrual of the full amount in 2016.
Any amounts required to be accrued due to the same judgments against the county from the towns of Hempstead and North Hempstead would merely heap more fuel on the out-of-control fiscal fire.
Fifteen million dollars plus another $13 million to $26 million equals a larger hole in an already deficit-ridden budget.
And NIFA control continues with any deficit of $30 million or more.
In other words, these two items alone are, if unaddressed, enough to keep the County’s elected officials from exercising the fiscal control required of their offices.
The moral of the story: The county’s elected leaders continue to bombard taxpayers with happy talk as Nassau’s fiscal hemorrhaging gets worse and worse.
Posted in Opinions, Opinions, Opinions, Opinions, Columnists, Opinions, Opinions on Thursday, April 28, 2016 11:45 am.
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