NEW YORK: Faced with the difficult task of balancing a budget in austere times, officials in New York's Suffolk County said they had no choice: they had to sack Santa Claus. 

The county executive said he could not justify carving out $660 from his $2.7 billion budget to pay David McKell, 83, a World War II veteran and former homicide detective, to don his Santa suit for the tenth year running and greet children on Long Island. 

"How do you justify that expenditure when a health center is losing money?" Steve Levy, theSuffolk County Executive, said in an interview. 

He said that some 750 county employees were facing layoffs as a result of budget restraints, including what he described as a $20 million cut in state aid to the county's health system. 

"Let either the private sector come forward with a donation, or, better yet, let's tap the volunteers in the community," he said. 

Levy was quickly called a Grinch by his opponents. 

"Do we really have to hold Santa Claus hostage to balance the budget?" said Bill Lindsay, a Democrat and the presiding officer of the county legislature. 

"I mean, $600? Give me a break," Joseph Sawicki, a Republican who oversees the county government's fiscal prudence, said.