After grappling for weeks with what many of its members described as a "shaky" budget proposal, the county Legislature on Oct. 30 adopted a fiscal plan that will increase taxes on all homeowners by about $4 a month, or $47 a year on a property assessed at $7,200.

"What we are doing is trying to internally change the fundamental structure of the county budget, so that in the future we won't have a system that has costly budget deficits built into it, and so that we can start addressing other issues," said Legislator John Ciotti, chairman of Legislature's powerful finance committee.

The total tax hike is 3.6 percent, and only in three county funds, the police headquarters fund, parks and recreation, and fire prevention and services.

The budget proposed by County Executive Thomas S. Gulotta in September showed deficit in each of those funds, deficits that he had planned to cover, in large part, with proceeds generated by the sale of the Nassau County Medical Center and other assets.

"The reason we felt we had to do a tax increase was that if the county executive's budget had been adopted, we would have wound up, once again, with a deficit in these same three funds," Legislator Ciotti said.

"Remember, these special districts were created so that they would operate in a somewhat autonomous fashion, and not draw on the general fund.

"By continually subsidizing them, however, we ended up creating the situation of an ongoing deficit."

The decision to raise taxes this year came after two days of meetings by the Legislature just before Halloween, a time when certain political considerations -- the Legislature's Presiding Officer, Bruce Blakeman, was running for State Comptroller - colored an already difficult process.

Sources have told this newspaper that Senator Alfonse D'Amato, realizing that he was in a statistical dead heat with his opponent, Congressman Charles Schumer, urged delaying the tax hike for fear that it would alienate Republican voters.

Ultimately, however, Nassau County Republican Chairman Joseph N. Mondello told the party's caucus in the Legislature that it had to do the right thing, and that the political consequences of inaction would be as great or greater than those accompanying the tax increase.

In addition to attempting to make the three funds in question more self-sufficient, Legislator Edward H. Ward said he and his fellow lawmakers also worked hard to make revenue projections for next year somewhat more realistic.

With the tax increase, for instance, the Legislature was able to re-appraise the sale of the hospital to the public benefits corporation, cutting the anticipated sales price from $96 million down to $60 million, while also decreasing the size of subsequent county subsidies to the facility.

Where it was originally estimated that the county would have to subsidize the hospital to the tune of $40 million annually, it will now only subsidize the hospital $17 million a year.

That figure includes a direct subsidy to the hospital of $12 million, and another $5 million dedicated to subsidizing the health department.

In a marked change of position, Presiding Officer Blakeman has agreed to allow the PBC to issue close to $105 million in bonds to cover operating expenses.

Previously, he had only offered legislative approval of $40 million in bonds.

Also for the first time, he's authorized putting the full faith and credit of the county behind the bonds.

"With a whole budget balanced on the back of the hospital, we knew we'd certainly be in trouble in the long run," another county legislator said. "If you fill a deficit with a one-shot revenue, you'll have to fill it again with another one-shot in a year's time. It just isn't a wise way to manage a county's money."

In addition to down-scaling the size of the hospital sale, both in terms of revenues and expenditures, the Legislature also scaled down the county executive's proposals in regard to land sale revenues.

"The days of the phony land sale are over," another member of the Republican caucus said. "The proposed budget contained some $53 million in revenues from so called anticipated land sales. Our budget contained only $7.7 million.

"Our feeling was, let's just count on the ones we know we are going to sell."

Asked if he'd heard any complaints from constituents about the tax increase, Legislator Ward said, if anything, he's heard more praise than anything else.

"The calls I've gotten, believe it or not, have been calls of support," Legislator Ward said. "From the letters and calls I've gotten, I think people see what we've done as putting an end to mortgaging the future.

"Of course, we proceeded very carefully in taking the action we did, and so we haven't solved all of the county's budgetary problems, but we've reversed the trend a little bit and I think the people who elected us to serve sent us to the Legislature to do that very thing."