Family ties in Nassau local government

There are more than 100 current or former elected Nassau office holders, high-level appointees and political club leaders with government jobs in Nassau County who have had at least one family member on a public payroll since 2015. Some of these officials have had two, three or four relatives employed by a municipality or public agency controlled by their political party, primarily the county and its three towns. These relatives – paid a total of about $8 million annually in taxpayer-funded salaries and wages – hold a range of jobs, from six-figure managerial posts to seasonal positions as laborers and clerks. Some are political appointees, meaning they can be hired outside of the competitive Civil Service process; others hold Civil Service jobs that require passing a test for specific job titles and being ranked with competitors based on their scores.

Newsday analyzed 2015 and 2016 public payrolls for Nassau County and Hempstead, North Hempstead and Oyster Bay towns. Newsday confirmed family connections that hadn’t already been the subject of news reports with county and town officials and/or by identifying shared addresses in public records. For full-time employees, ‘Pay’ indicates annual base salary for the most recently available year. For part-time and seasonal employees with hourly wages, it indicates the most-recently available gross pay. Read more about Nassau family ties here. This database was posted on Oct. 13, 2017.