Bruce Blakeman wants the state finance board that controls Nassau County’s budget to get out of the way. The board said no.
At a news conference in Mineola on Friday, April 10, Blakeman called on the Nassau Interim Finance Authority to shift from a control authority to an advisory authority, a move that would hand the county considerably more power over its own financial decisions. NIFA’s chair, Richard Kessel, answered in about as many words as it takes to swing a bat: the board isn’t going anywhere.
“He has no authority to end NIFA’s control period. We have no intention of ending the control period anytime soon,” Kessel said. “He legally has no authority and he can say whatever he wants to say, but he can’t do whatever he wants to do.”
That’s a hard wall to run into. And Blakeman, who is also running as a Republican candidate for governor in November, knows it. NIFA is the only body with legal authority to end a control period once it’s been declared. State lawmakers created the board in 2000, and its seven members are appointed by the governor, the state Senate majority leader, the state Assembly speaker, and the state comptroller. All four of those offices are currently held by Democrats. Nassau County’s major offices, by contrast, are all held by Republicans. The math on who controls NIFA isn’t complicated.
Blakeman’s argument rests on the county’s fiscal performance. County officials said at the news conference they had originally planned to draw more than $30 million from reserve funds to cover the 2025 county budget. They finished the year with a $15 million surplus instead. Blakeman said the county also saved nearly $50 million more than planned during the previous fiscal year through what he called conservative fiscal policies and smart financial planning.
“We are in the best fiscal condition that the county has ever been in. We are doing terrific,” he said.
Whether you buy that framing depends a lot on your memory. NIFA entered its control period in 2011 after Nassau’s finances deteriorated badly enough to trigger state intervention. Control periods don’t happen because a county is running tight. They happen because something broke. The board has, since then, held authority to approve or reject the county’s annual budget, labor agreements, and contracts, and to freeze county wages. That kind of power doesn’t evaporate because one good fiscal year showed up.
Blakeman wasn’t subtle about the political dimension. He accused Gov. Kathy Hochul of using NIFA as a tool.
“NIFA has been a political machine governed by Kathy Hochul. She wants to control every aspect of our business here in Nassau County, just like she has throughout the state of New York,” he said. Any decision that didn’t include NIFA stepping aside, he added, would be “unfair and biased.”
Ryan Radulovacki, a spokesman for Hochul’s campaign, didn’t take long to fire back.
“‘100% MAGA’ Bruce Blakeman’s failed leadership helped create the mess that needed rescuing in the first place, and he didn’t just screw up on finances: Blakeman let violent crime hit 10-year highs under his watch and nearly ran Nassau’s safety net hospital and county jail into the ground,” Radulovacki said, according to the Long Island Press.
That’s the November campaign talking, not just a budget dispute. Both men know it.
The structural reality here is worth keeping in mind for Nassau County taxpayers. NIFA’s oversight authority covers what the board calls Covered Organizations, a category that includes county departments and certain related entities. During a control period, the board’s reach extends into virtually every major fiscal decision the county makes. Blakeman can hold as many news conferences in Mineola as he wants. Without action from Albany, those powers stay put.
For NIFA, the calculus is simpler. The board has a legal mandate, a Democratic-appointed membership, and zero institutional incentive to hand authority back to a Republican county executive who is simultaneously running against a Democratic governor. That combination is about as likely to produce voluntary concessions as Camden Yards in April is to produce a shutout from the bullpen.
Blakeman’s $15 million surplus is real. His fiscal argument has some legitimate grounding. But wanting NIFA to step back and getting NIFA to step back are two very different things, and the gap between them is currently about 26 years of state law.