Suffolk Notebook: Bellone Defends Commish Over Double Dipping

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone delivered a stern defense this week of newly hired police commissioner Edward Webber after reports that the top cop is set to make more than $321,000 a year between his pension and new salary.

Bellone defended Webber's double dipping by pointing to the county's $2 million in police overtime savings this year and that fact that what the commissioner is doing is perfectly legal, according to a CBS report.

Bellone also intends to give county's legislature another opportunity to approve Webber in the post, a sign he said the will prove the confidence county lawmakers have in commissioner.

Webber, who is 65 years old, will pull in a pension near $158,000, Newsday reported, on top of his commissioner's salary of $162,760 a year.

IDA Benefits for British Firm

The Suffolk County Industrial Agency will dish out tax incentives to a British cloud computing firm that plans to expand and hire at its Huntington facility.

As part of the IDA's BOOST program, the county will support VLI North America, which plans to invest more than $100,000 in upgrades to its Long Island location and will hire another 20 workers. The BOOST program focuses on smaller incentive programs to help smaller firms instead of traditional IDA packages in the past meant to support large-scale employers.

VLI will receive $38,000 in property tax abatements and $10,500 in sales tax exemptions on equipment.

IDA Gets New Website

Bellone this week also announced a new website for the IDA that he hopes will give businesses more access to the county's incentive options.

"We need to make sure our pro-economic development message is being delivered to the business community,” Bellone said in a statement. “Retaining our jobs and helping to create new ones is of the highest priority and this new website serves an avenue for local companies to learn about the IDA's incentives and read about the success stories.”

To see it in action, click here.