Last week Nassau County Legislator Dennis Dunne penned an item calling on Nassau County to reduce spending. I am pleased to inform residents that since I took office in January of 2004 Nassau County reduced its workforce to the lowest levels in 30 years, aggressively rooted out waste, fraud and abuse and stood its ground on contentious labor negotiations, winning historic cost-saving concessions.

Nassau County is the only county in the state to have not raised taxes during the past five years. During that time the county portion of your property tax has gone from 22 percent to 17 percent of your bill. Legislator Dunne called the democratic majority a "rubber stamp." For those of you who know my record, that could not be further from the truth. I broke with my fellow legislators and stopped a change to the county charter to give legislators pay raises, a measure that Legislator Dunne and his caucus support. I also led the fight against the county fee for dismissed tickets. The fee increase passed because of Republican support.

I would remind Legislator Dunne that it was the Republican caucus' "rubber stamp" of Tom Gulotta's policies that nearly bankrupted this county and had us rated "the worst run county in America" by Governing Magazine. Since that time Nassau County has been called one of the biggest municipal turnarounds in America.

There is still much work to be done. Rather than engage in politically divisive rhetoric we should join together in a bipartisan coalition to fight for more state aid for our schools and against the unfunded mandates that have caused the dramatic increases in property taxes. Property taxes make up nearly 78 percent of our school budgets. The politicians in Albany are shortchanging Long Islanders in a bipartisan way, sending our tax dollars upstate and to New York City. We must take this fight to our communities and engage taxpayers. Go to www.FightHighTaxes.com to join the coalition.

Legislator Dave Mejias