As he’d threatened all along, Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano has filed suit against the Nassau Interim Finance Authority’s takeover of his county’s shaky (and then some) finances.
It’s a bad move on the merits.
But it sure shines a light on how Nassau got in its fix in the first place.
It seems that Mangano is tossing county funds to his old law firm, Rivkin Radler, to pursue the action.
In fact, Mangano has been hiring a whole lot of outside law firms to handle county business, at a cost of nearly $1 million — of which $300,000 has gone to his former firm, with another $175,000 contract in the works.
Earlier this month, Democrats argued that spending such sums on outside counsel sent precisely the wrong message to NIFA, at a time when the watchdog agency was considering a takeover.
How right they were.
Mangano would have done much better to work with NIFA — which is legally obligated to step in if it determines that Nassau’s budget is at least 1 percent out of whack, or about $26 million.
And NIFA concluded that Mangano’s budget contained a $176 million deficit — almost seven times the tipping point.
Moody’s, the bond agency, agreed — and lowered Nassau’s credit rating to reflect the imbalance.
And the lawsuit could further imperil Nassau’s credit standing — not to mention impacting the state’s credit, as well.
Nassau residents have suffered enough from fiscal mismanagement, which is why they pay the nation’s second-highest property taxes.
Mangano needs to quit feeding his old buddies at Rivkin Radler, and to focus on the problems at hand.