Official Website of Ellis Henican | HEY WISCONSIN – LOOK AT NASSAU’S SWEET DEALS

Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, February 27, 2011

All eyes are on Wisconsin this weekend. Will the nation’s gaze turn to Nassau County next?

Whatever sweet deals unionized teachers have been receiving in Milwaukee and Madison, you can bet they get nothing half as sweet as this: A $338,000 handshake on the way out the door, like some Nassau police got last year.

Not a bad slide into early retirement!

According to county Comptroller George Maragos, $338,000 was the median payout for the 115 Nassau cops who took advantage – yes, took advantage – of the county’s gold-plated retirement-incentive deal.

Six-figure salaries, Cadillac health benefits, generous sick days and vacations – and now this? Wisconsin teachers are sweatshop workers by comparison.

And yet: The issue of coddled state employees and their sweetheart union contracts has ground the Wisconsin government to a halt. If only they got an eyeful of Long Island!

Wrap your head around these numbers, also pulled together by the comptroller’s office: Corrections officers received a median payout of $54,000 (five got more than $100,000). Civil Service Employee Association members got $45,000 each. Forty of them hit six figures.

While you ponder that, remember that the incentive program was created by the supposedly tight-fisted county executive, Edward Mangano. It cost Nassau County a total of $57.5 million. Mangano’s people say the county will ultimately save tens of millions by bum-rushing highly-paid workers out the door. Maragos disputes that estimate. But can anyone deny the comptroller’s basic point? “The county simply cannot afford to continue paying hundreds of thousands of dollars per person in termination pay.”

Nassau’s platinum handshake, remember, wasn’t for increased efficiency or a job well done. It was for leaving and never coming back. If these county employees – and it’s not just cops – are serving us so splendidly, why are we bribing them so lavishly to leave?

GADDAFI’S SECRET TWEETS

1. Colonel Sanders, Colonel Klink, Colonel Mustard – maybe I should have chosen some other rank.

2. It’s ‘Libya,’ like ‘Dubya.’ Man, I really miss that guy.

3. If Twitlonger didn’t already exist, they would have had to create it just for me.

4. She’s my nurse – honest!

5. How many legions does Facebook have, huh?

ASKED AND UNANSWERED:

In his lawsuit over the LIRR’s $10 ticket-refund surcharge, is Hewlett’s Christopher Ebel paying Melville attorney Kenneth Mollins more – or less — than $10 in legal fees? Or is the legal bill this time being paid in free publicity?…As an “American Idol” front-runner, does Calhoun High junior Robbie Rosen understand that Jennifer Lopez’s rave – “Honestly, you’re one the best singers we have” – is worth its weight in future gold records? Seven-time All-County musician was nice – but this is life-changing, kid…In the Case of the Distressed Jones Beach Seal, will anybody bother to ask: How much of the sudden uproar is caused by the cuteness of seals? Remember the Case of the Distressed Jones Beach Jellyfish? Didn’t think so…Okay, which part of our February plea didn’t the Weather Gods understand: (a) Higher temps are good? Or (b) lashing rains are bad? In hindsight, should we have mentioned (b) a bit more emphatically?…Suffolk OTB is slouching toward bankruptcy? Will the mob’s illegal bookies quit laughing long enough to grab what’s left of the state bookies’ legal-betting action?… Strange to be asking this, I know: But as career criminal Melvin Fleming laid out his crazy he-paid-me-to-kill-him defense in the bizarre Jeff Locker case, have you begun to think: “You know what? This crazy story might actually be true”?

LONG ISLANDERS OF THE WEEK

INTERFAITH RELIGIOUS LEADERS

Different doctrines, different practices, different prayers: It’s difficult to get Long Island’s many religious groups to work together on anything. But more than eighty Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and other faith leaders have signed a strongly-worded letter to Rep. Peter King, pleading with him to cancel his planned congressional hearings regarding the Muslim-American community. “We fear this effort will only further divide our community and undermine our nation’s highest ideals,” the alarmed leaders say. They’re right.