STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
State and local governments are starting a year of just trying to get by. Nassau County on New York's Long Island is among the wealthiest places in America, but its troubled finances could force the state to take control. Here's NPR's Jim Zarroli.
JIM ZARROLI: When police arrest someone for child abuse in Nassau County, the victims are often brought here to begin healing. It's called a safe place, and it's run by a nonprofit called the Coalition Against Child Abuse and Neglect. These days, says executive director Cynthia Scott, the organization's future is uncertain.
CYNTHIA SCOTT: I guess there's a piece of all of us that we're holding our breaths, because I don't know that we know all that much about it or what to expect, should that happen.
ZARROLI: The problem is that the coalition gets much of its money from Nassau County, which is struggling with a budget crisis. This crisis has been years in the making, says Lawrence Levy, who heads the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University.
LAWRENCE LEVY: Even without the recession hitting the county as hard as it did, the county was still on a trajectory where it was spending more than it was taking in. And it was papering over this structural deficit by borrowing, by overestimating revenues and by underestimating expenditures.
ZARROLI: Nassau County is home to some very wealthy people. "The Great Gatsby" was set here. But much of the population is more middle-class.
FRANK RUSSO: And then we got four bedrooms up here. This was the...
ZARROLI: Frank Russo is retired from his job as a manager at AT&T. But he still lives in the house he bought in Port Washington in 1975. He and his wife raised seven children here.
RUSSO: Three girls were in here, two boys in here, two boys in here.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
ZARROLI: In the years since Russo bought the house, local property taxes have gone from about $3,000 a year to nearly 16,000.
RUSSO: My income is my pension and my Social Security. That's 98 percent of my income. And this has taken a big part of it - the property taxes. It's the single biggest expense I'd say that we have. Nothing else comes near it.
ZARROLI: George Maragos is the county's new comptroller.
GEORGE MARAGOS: Nassau County is one of the highest tax counties in the country. We have a net outflow of people and businesses from this county. We need to make it attractive for our young families to stay here.
ZARROLI: Republicans like Maragos see the move as a power grab by the state legislature.
MARAGOS: You have unelected officials making judgments as to who to penalize and who to tax. And that we think unfair and inappropriate and somewhat undemocratic.
ZARROLI: But if the unions won't go along, county officials will have to make large cuts in services. Maragos says the county spends a lot more than it needs to.
MARAGOS: Does the county need to operate a rifle range? Do we need to be in the business of operating golf courses? It may have been great some years ago when there was a lot of money, as an additional service to the public. But is it something the taxpayer want to pay and subsidize?
ZARROLI: But Hofstra's Lawrence Levy isn't sure how much budget-cutting Nassau County residents are really ready for. Levy says county officials are in a real bind.
LEVY: They have voters who love their services. They want a cop on every corner. They want a park on every block. They want to know that the bus is going to come when the bus is supposed to come. But if you say, okay, great, we've got to raise your property taxes three or four or five percent, they'll vote you out of office.
ZARROLI: Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
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