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There’s no accounting for these county checks.
Cash-strapped Nassau County, which was placed in state receivership this week because its hapless officials can’t balance the budget, is being bled dry by its bloated $1.3 billion payroll, data show.
Roughly one-third of the county’s 10,000 employees had yearly salaries north of $100,000 in 2010 and 24 were paid over $200,000, data compiled by the Manhattan Institute show.
The Nassau Interim Finance Authority, an oversight body formed in 2000 after the county required a massive state bailout, seized fiscal control of the county Wednesday after determining the $2.6 billion 2011 budget would be as much as $176 million in the red.
Many of the sweet salaries and overtime boosters are locked into place by union contracts until 2015, approved by then-County Executive Thomas Suozzi and the county legislature. The deals promise no layoffs until after this year, although Suozzi scored some givebacks.
NIFA, as the oversight board is known, has the ability to freeze wages and amend set-in-stone union contracts. But so far it has said that option is off the table, instead demanding that County Executive Edward Mangano overhaul the budget by Feb. 15.
But freezing runaway wages is exactly what is needed, according to Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos.
“It’s disappointing that they didn’t see fit to declare a fiscal emergency, so they could freeze salary raises for the year,” said Maragos. “They would have — if they were sincere and serious.”
Indeed, Mangano’s rejected 2011 budget cut only 400 jobs.
Almost half of the proposed spending goes to employee payroll, benefits and pensions.
“And about 50 percent of our labor costs are benefits, particularly health benefits and pensions. If you compare that to private industry, their fringe benefits are typically 30 percent or less — so there’s a big discrepancy there,” said Maragos.
That $455 million in benefits packed into the proposed budget includes $130 million for health insurance for active employees and $126 million for retiree health insurance — an increase of more than 13 percent over the prior year.
Runaway salaries are fueled by union contracts that guarantee yearly raises of 3 percent and don’t expire until 2015.
Maragos accused NIFA board members of not giving themselves the authority to freeze county wages in order “to force property-tax increases — to protect the union contracts. I think it’s all political.”
Mangano declined to comment yesterday but earlier disputed NIFA’s findings and said he would sue.
NIFA Chairman Ronald Stack yesterday said no legal papers had been served and that Mangano should concentrate on revamping the budget.
“Then I’ll know how serious they are,” said Stack.
One area where NIFA did challenge Mangano was the $61 million in labor concessions that it said would not materialize this year.