Ed Mangano
Edward P. Mangano is an American former politician and disbarred attorney from the state of New York. A Republican, he was the Nassau County Executive from January 2010 to December 2017, and a former legislator in Nassau County, New York. He was elected in 1995 and served seven terms as a county legislator. In November 2009, he defeated incumbent Thomas R. Suozzi for Nassau County Executive. In November 2013, he was re-elected, again defeating Suozzi, by 59% to 41%.
In October 2016, a 13-count federal indictment for fraud and bribery was unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York against Mangano, his wife Linda, and Oyster Bay Town Supervisor John Venditto. He did not seek reelection in 2017. He and his wife were both convicted in March 2019 and faced up to 20 years in prison. In April 2022, Mangano was sentenced to 12 years in prison for felonies and has since reported to prison on September 13, 2022 pending appeal.
Early life
Edward Mangano was raised in Bethpage, New York, one of three siblings born to John and Rachel Mangano. During high school he worked as a janitor, in order to earn money for college. He earned undergraduate and law degrees from Hofstra University.Early career
Mangano printed and published newspapers. In 1988, he was admitted to the New York State Bar. He subsequently served as counsel to the Long Island law firm Rivkin Radler.County legislator
Mangano represented the 17th legislative district of Nassau County as County Legislator for seven terms, from 1996, when the legislature was first formed, until 2009. This district includes areas of Bethpage, Hicksville, Plainedge, South Farmingdale, Levittown and Syosset. He served on the Rules Committee, the Public Works Committee, the Recreation and Parks Committee, the Procedures Committee, and the Economic and Community Development Committee. He was replaced by fellow Republican Rose Marie Walker.Mangano was the recipient of an award from New York's League of Conservation Voters for "working to preserve open space and setting aside $5 million for the acquisition of the Underhill Property" and for "fighting for the “Clean Water/Clear Air bond act funding for the purpose of ground water protection".
2009 County Executive campaign
In the spring of 2009, Legislator Mangano began a campaign for Nassau County Executive. His platform included promises to cut wasteful spending, freeze and fix Nassau's broken property tax assessment system, repeal the new tax on home energy and electricity use, and halt the practice of borrowing and relying on debt to pay current expenses.In an upset in the November 2009 election, Mangano narrowly defeated the incumbent, Thomas Suozzi, winning the county executive position by 386 votes. He led the Republicans to a major victory, in which they took three of the four county-wide positions, and regained control of the County Legislature.
In October 2009, Mangano's brother's business, New Media Printing, in Bethpage was found to have more than $900,000 in federal and state tax liens. Mangano stated that he no longer had an interest in this company.
County executive
Tax policy
Mangano promised that if elected, he would repeal a $38 million home energy tax on homeowners passed by former County Executive Tom Suozzi, which cost households on average $7.27 a month. During his inaugural address, Mangano fulfilled his promise by signing an executive order to repeal the tax as of June 1, 2010. His administration estimated the repeal would save families and seniors hundreds of dollars each year. He eliminated a 13% property tax hike proposed by Suozzi.Due to the lost revenue from the tax cut, the Nassau County Interim Financial Authority found that the county's $2.6 billion budget was out of balance by $176 million. This led Moody's Investors Service to downgrade the county and put its finances on outlook negative. NIFA did not consider Mangano to have a satisfactory plan to make up for the lost revenue, and seized control of the county's finances. This outcome was called "a cautionary tale" and "a black eye for the Tea Party" by Reuters, although it was noted that much of the county's financial problems had been inherited from a previous financial crisis in 1999 under the administration of then-County Executive Thomas Gulotta which had led to the original creation of NIFA.
In his proposed 2011 budget, Mangano proposed the removal of the county guarantee, a policy that saw Nassau County repaying taxes that were wrongfully collected and distributed to school taxes. Under the new policy school districts in Nassau, like the rest of the country, would be responsible for returning funds collected in error. This was met with heated opposition by the school districts, who objected that they would immediately be forced to begin setting money aside to pay the property tax refunds starting in 2013. The budget was approved by the Nassau County Legislature on October 30, 2010, with all 8 Democrats voting against and all 11 Republicans voting in favor.
Mangano has implemented several tax initiatives including "$35.6 million in revenue" garnered "from increased real estate fees that" have added "hundreds or thousands of dollars to the cost of buying, selling or refinancing properties in the county." A CBS news story about the proposed inclusion of a $105 surcharge for every issuance of a traffic or parking ticket in Nassau County quoted several county residents deriding potential fallout from such fees; in the same story, Mangano said "the fee would help pay for the police force to work overtime in policing public events, and would alleviate homeowners from potential tax increases". On October 5, 2016, Nassau County legislature Democrats opposed Mangano's tax plan, claiming it was a 9.4% tax increase.
Assessment system
The property assessment system in Nassau County had been blamed for costing taxpayers $250 million each year, including $100 million in refunds and $150 million in interest on debt incurred to pay tax settlements in previous years. In all, this accounts for $1.13 billion of the county's $2.45 billion in outstanding debt. Mangano in March 2010 said he would make reforming the assessment system a priority in his administration, and instructed county lawyers to insist on a 3% rather than 4% interest rate for commercial tax certiorari settlements, saving the county $1 million annually, and created an Assessment Reform Team to study the property tax assessment system and make recommendations for fixing it. He also moved the county to a four-year assessment cycle so that the assessed property values would be more stable. In May 2010, Mangano returned to financing property tax refunds with new debt rather than out of its regular budget in what was described as a temporary measure, a move which was criticized by Democrats because it went against NIFA's wishes to end such borrowing completely.In late October 2010, errors were found in the first school tax-roll released by the Mangano administration, including incorrect tax-exempt statuses for various properties, such Nassau's own Executive Building, which was included on the roll at $56 million despite being tax-exempt, which contributed to assessing the county itself with an erroneous $1.3 million school tax bill. Following these errors, Mangano fired Assessor Ted Jankowski, who had been originally appointed by Thomas Suozzi and had been criticized by Republicans, and who was considered to be at fault for the errors not being caught. To fix the assessment system further, former Smithtown Assessor Gregory Hild was appointed to review the system.
Property tax
During Andrew Cuomo's Governor campaign, Mangano supported Cuomo's 2% Tax Cap plan which forces all property tax increases to be capped at the lower of 2% or the rate of inflation, and appeared at many Long Island rallies with him. In June 2011, after passing the State Legislature, Cuomo signed the Tax Cap plan in Lynbrook, along with Mangano and other County politicians.Lawsuit against MTA
In July 2010, Mangano announced that Nassau County had filed a lawsuit against the State of New York and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority challenging the legality of the 0.34% Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Mobility Tax, a payroll tax levied on employers in the 12-county area served by the MTA. Mangano said that the lawsuit was a reaction to the MTA's plans to significantly reducing funding to the Long Island Bus and asserted that it "costs Nassau government about $3 million a year and county business owners another $100 million." The lawsuit challenged the legality and constitutionality of the MTA Employer Payroll Tax and argued that it violated the New York State Constitution. Several municipalities joined Nassau's lawsuit, including Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Westchester, and Suffolk counties.Although the counties' suit was initially successful in the trial court, the counties lost on appeal.
Budgetary policy
Mangano delivered his first "State of the County" address on March 15, 2010. During the speech Mangano stated that, to solve Nassau County's woes, structural reforms would be needed to fix the property tax assessment system and rein in county spending.Mangano has reduced the public payroll, including highly paid managers, by $22 million in 2010. He also launched an effort to sell surplus property such as vehicles and equipment in an effort to reduce maintenance costs.
In 2011, Mangano faced a $310 million Nassau County deficit. In September 2011, Mangano released a proposed 2012 budget with a total cut of $62 million and planned layoffs of 1,010 out of 8,000 total employees, with 5-15% cuts in every department, including the consolidation of police precincts and the closing of several museums. The budget would also require all employees to contribute 25% toward their health insurances. This budget was criticized by some legislators and police union representatives. This budget was approved in October 2011, by a party-line vote of 11 Republicans in favor and 8 Democrats opposed.
In September 2011, Mangano proposed selling the Nassau County sewer system to a private operator in a private-public partnership for $1.3 billion. The county has hired Morgan Stanley as an advisor concerning this sale. Nassau's current Sewer and Storm Water Finance Authority has $162 million of its own debt, and is responsible for $305 million of sewer debt issued by the county before 2004.
In January 2012, Mangano and other Nassau County officials announced a plan to consolidate Nassau County's eight police precincts into 4 precincts and to eliminate 108 mostly administrative jobs, which they claim could save $20 million a year. Mangano and county officials said that the number of police cars will remain the same at 177, but prisoners would be processed exclusively at the four remaining precincts, which are called community policing centers under the plan. The Nassau Police Benevolent Association and four other Nassau police unions were sharply critical of this plan and of earlier concessions that Mangano had called for, but a Newsday editorial supported it.