Long Island taxpayers are on the hook for $847 million in county and municipal spending tied to public communications, emergency response coordination, and interagency photography contracts from the most recent fiscal cycle, based on budget documents reviewed by Long Island Forum. That’s the combined Nassau and Suffolk Counties total. It doesn’t include what each county’s public information office spends separately on media liaisons, press staff, and the growing roster of government photographers billing hourly to shoot ribbon-cuttings and press conferences.
Worth asking: how much of that $847 million actually funds public safety, and how much funds the government’s Instagram presence?
Images aren’t just decorative in public sector work. They’re used in court cases, insurance disputes, post-storm damage assessments, and FOIA responses. The Associated Press, which has been supplying documentary photography to news organizations globally for more than 175 years, licenses wire images to government agencies, emergency management offices, and public institutions across the country. Nassau County’s communications budget cleared $4.2 million last fiscal year, county records show. Suffolk’s public information operation ran at $3.8 million for the same period.
That’s a combined $8 million before you get to line items like wire service subscriptions.
Every municipal PIO office on Long Island buys AP wire access, typically bundled into broader media service contracts that don’t separate out individual line costs. Residents in Hempstead, Oyster Bay, and Huntington are paying for that access right now. Most of them don’t know it exists.
Brookhaven Town’s communications contracts show $218,000 allocated for media licensing and wire service subscriptions in 2026. Islip paid $94,000 for similar services. Neither town could hand over an itemized breakdown showing which specific wire feeds they subscribe to or how frequently those images actually get deployed in official materials. Neither. Not one document.
The Brooklyn Eagle’s photo archive from April 9, 2026 illustrates the point well. Regional events that generate official imagery are routinely catalogued under contract, with Long Island’s property tax structure already making taxpayers sensitive to any spending that can’t be clearly justified.
So what does a wire service contract actually cost a municipality? Annual licensing agreements with major services start around $15,000 for a basic subscription package. Full editorial and commercial use rights push that number past $200,000. Most Long Island towns won’t say publicly where they land on that spectrum, and budget line items are written broadly enough that it’s nearly impossible to tell from public filings alone.
Taxpayer advocacy groups aren’t satisfied with the standard “it’s just how we operate” response from municipal communications offices. “Every line item matters when you’re talking about some of the highest property tax burdens in the country,” said a spokesperson for a Nassau-based fiscal watchdog organization, who asked to remain unnamed because the group is actively reviewing county contracts. That quote reflects a frustration that’s been building for years among residents who can’t reconcile soaring tax bills with opaque government spending.
Long Island homeowners pay an average of $11,000 annually in property taxes, which ranks among the steepest rates anywhere in the United States, according to Tax Foundation data. For a two-income household in Oyster Bay or Huntington, that’s not an abstraction. It’s a number they see every quarter.
The 2026 budget cycle has surfaced renewed pressure on Nassau and Suffolk Counties to publish full contract disclosures for communications spending. It’s not a new ask. Advocacy groups have been pushing for itemized breakdowns since at least the early 2010s, and the counties have consistently responded with consolidated figures that obscure vendor-level detail. What changed this year is the dollar figure: $847 million is hard to wave away.
The communications directors for both Nassau County and Suffolk won’t comment on the specific composition of their wire service contracts, citing ongoing procurement processes. That’s a familiar dodge. Budget watchdogs say they’ll be back at the next public hearing.
Brookhaven’s $218,000 media licensing line and Islip’s $94,000 figure represent a combined $312,000 just from two towns. Multiply that pattern across Long Island’s 9 major municipal communications operations and the aggregate cost picture sharpens considerably.
