Levy Speaks at WIA Meeting, Discusses State of County

Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy made a guest appearance at West Islip Association’s monthly meeting last week at the West Islip Public Library.

Levy, who announced Thursday that , gave an overview of the state of the county and answered questions from roughly 50 residents who were in attendance. 

President of the WIA, Joe DeCarlo, began the meeting by giving a brief background on how the which was charged with saving the LaGrange Inn from demolition and was initiated by Leg. Thomas Barraga.  President DeCarlo highlighted some of Levy’s accomplishments since being elected in 2003.

“I think the main message Mr. Levy gave us is that he has the interest of the public coming first and those of the special interest will be exposed,” DeCarlo said. 

Levy’s comments focused largely on the conservative fiscal responsibility of the county to reduce government spending.  He listed the many ways he has achieved this goal with out raising taxes.

“I don’t care if someone is a Democrat or Republican…as long as they are doing the right thing.  It all comes down to one thing, can we afford to remain to live here,” Levy said.

Levy also spoke about how he put the counties healthcare plan out for bid, which resulted in a savings of roughly $200 million over the last seven years.  The implementation of an early retirement incentive for county employees helped to shrink the government further.

“Once they leave, you have to have the discipline to say we are not going to replace those people,” he said.  “That’s the way you lower the tax burden by shrinking the size of the government.” 

Levy has proposed a budget that will increase the Suffolk County Police Department by 220 officers, doing so by reorganizing management and without raising taxes.  He also spoke about the drop in crime rates, how taxes are lower than when he came into office, and that this years 2011 budget spends less money than the 2008 budget. 

With regards to collective bargaining for public employees, Levy said mandatory arbitration is the problem, not the negotiation process.  He believes this is the reason salaries have become out of control and unsustainable.  Levy said collective bargaining doesn’t scare him, it’s taking away bargaining that concerns him.  “Cap it as Chris Christie did in New Jersey, and I’ll be very happy.” 

The questions from the audience ranged from pension issues and tax caps to illegal street racing and the county’s contribution to the New York State pension plan, which will increase to $50 million next year. 

“It is so darn expensive to live here, and the problem we have is there never seems to be any end in sight,” Levy said. It just keeps going up and up and up.  The government often acts like a ponzi scheme, and keeps raising your taxes to keep the unsustainable going.”

DeCarlo added: “I think overall he was quite in tune from what you are hearing from the tax revolt going on in Washington and around the country with the new Congress looking to reduced the size, scope and cost of government which has clearly gone over the public’s ability to pay.”